Mabuyane: The mad hatter at the Magwa tea party
February 17th, 2021
Premier Oscar Mabuyane is the Mad Hatter at the Magwa tea party, dishing out hundreds of millions of taxpayers’ rands to produce some of the most expensive tea in the world. Not only has Premier Mabuyane used taxpayers’ money with wilful abandon to produce the tea, he also wants provincial government departments and local municipalities to use even more taxpayers’ money to buy the tea produced. If anything, Magwa should …
Read More
Speech Notes: Vote 8 – DRDAR Annual & Half Year Financial Oversight Reports
February 5th, 2021 Speaker, in November last year, we had a debate in the House on Climate Change. I revealed then that as far back as 2011, the Eastern Cape Provincial Government had revealed its Climate Change Response Strategy at COP17. This 350 page document dealt with both the key climate change risks as well as the priority response options to climate change. This strategy stated that: “Climate change projections indicate that the …
Read More
DA to fight for release of Nelson Mandela Bay drought funding
February 5th, 2021
Nelson Mandela Bay is currently in the grip of a devastating drought, that has seen the combined dam levels supplying the Metro drop below 20%. Despite this, the previous ANC-led Coalition of Corruption, failed to spend conditional grants given to the city for drought mitigation measure, totalling R188 million rand, during its two years in government from 2018 to 2020. National Treasury has subsequently refused to roll over these funds. …
Read More
EC Government still has not acted against PPE corruption
January 26th, 2021 Nearly 10 months after the first allegations of fraud, corruption and collusion in the procurement of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, not a single company that acted as a supplier to the Eastern Cape government has been blacklisted. Despite Premier Oscar Mabuyane’s firm commitment that his government will take a hard line against Covid-19 corruption, he has been unable to charge a single person criminally …
Read More
Loadshedding devastating blow to EC farmers
January 18th, 2021 The latest bout of loadshedding is another devastating blow to Eastern Cape farmers, who are dependent on Eskom electricity supply to pump water for their irrigation needs. Some Eastern Cape farmers have already had their water allocations severely cut by the Department of Water Affairs, while others have also had to ration their own water supplies, due to the unprecedented drought conditions that have prevailed across the province for years. …
Read More
EC Government must account for poor handling of EC drought crisis
December 11th, 2020 The Democratic Alliance (DA) has demanded that both Eastern Cape Department of Rural Development and Agrarian Reform (DRDAR) and Co-operative Government and Traditional Affairs (COGTA) appear before SCOPA to account for their actions in the mishandling of the ongoing drought crisis. See letter A capable state would have put a co-ordinated, inter-departmental rapid response task team together. This would ensure that the necessary support is provided to those in crisis, …
Read More
Eastern Cape Govt dealt a R3,476 billion blow to budget
November 26th, 2020 The Eastern Cape Provincial Government was dealt a R3,476 billion blow during the Provincial Adjustments Budget tabled in the Eastern Cape Legislature today, which was cut from the province’s equitable share for compensation of employees from national government. MEC of Finance, Mulungisi Mvoko announced that the huge cut in employee funding had been offset, in part, by dipping into the Province’s financial reserves to the tune of R2 billion. This …
Read More
Holy Cow! R43 Million for just 350 litres of milk a day
November 17th, 2020 R43-million of taxpayers’ money has been invested into a failed dairy farm project in Port St Johns, in the Eastern Cape, that currently produces just 350 litres of milk a day. The Mantusini Dairy project was established on 373 hectares of communal land in Ward 7 in the Port St Johns Local Municipality and should benefit some 500 individual households under communal tenure. Instead, it is has become a shining …
Read More
EC Drought Summit needed, as rains have little effect on dam levels
October 29th, 2020 Despite the recent rains, there has been little improvement in the dam levels across the Eastern Cape, and the provincial government seems to have no long term plans in place to address the challenges that the ongoing drought has brought. Farmers are buckling under the immense pressure of an ongoing drought that has seen the national Department of Water Affairs slash water extraction rates for agricultural use. Across the province, …
Read More
No COVID Budget lifeline for Eastern Cape
September 3rd, 2020
The Special Adjustments Appropriation passed by the Eastern Cape Legislature today offers the people of the Eastern Cape no hope at all. What should have been a budget to support and guide our people through the worst health and economic crisis that have ever faced this country has become a box-ticking exercise for bureaucrats. At a time when the government should be pulling out all the stops to assist those …
Read More
For an archive on all articles relating to Retief Odendaal, please click here