Service delivery failures across Gauteng have been characterised by a lack of accountability. Chris Barron asked Cogta & infrastructure development MEC Jacob Mamabolo ...
Why aren’t you holding your mayors to account?
All mayors are being held accountable. The constitution provides for various accountability mechanisms ...
So why isn’t accountability happening in practice?
It is happening in practice, and I can give examples.
Emfuleni spent R11m on private grave diggers and now can’t pay their workers’ salaries. Has the mayor been held accountable?
The mayor has been held accountable in the sense that I continuously have discussions with the mayor about the state of the municipality.
Isn’t stronger accountability necessary?
Remember, the constitution requires of us as a province to also support municipalities where they’ve got difficulties. That means holding discussions with them about their failure to do certain things.
Given the devastating consequences of service delivery failures, isn’t there a need for something more ruthless than a chat?
It’s a dual intervention of accountability and support.
For all your support, the reality is Emfuleni can’t pay workers’ salaries. That’s desperate, isn’t it?
Yes, that is unacceptable. I will check with them why they’re unable to pay the workers, because often when they’re unable to pay workers they contact us immediately to assist them. This time they didn’t.
Ekurhuleni has returned R9.5m in unspent grant funding earmarked for crucial infrastructure. Have you held the mayor accountable?
Let me concede that on this particular matter we have not taken any action to hold the mayor accountable.
Didn’t the president say that the failure to spend allocated funds is an affront to the people and tantamount to treason?
We strongly support that statement of the president. It’s absolutely a betrayal of the people.
But you let it pass?
No, no, we didn’t let it pass. All I’m saying is that at this point we have not yet deployed an appropriate form of action on the mayor for poor expenditure.
Will you be holding the mayors of Ekurhuleni and Johannesburg to account for appointing city managers in defiance of legal requirements?
Neither of them has given us a formal report yet. Once they do, we will be able to deal with the matter. But last week we had a councillors’ imbizo where we made it loud and clear that it is unacceptable not to comply with the law.
When will you start ensuring that infrastructure projects are completed on time and on budget?
We have put together a team of professionals in the built environment that conducts site visits to tell us how projects are progressing on time, quality and cost. That is a major intervention.
So why has the urgently needed Gauteng Forensic Medical Services Laboratory not been completed yet?
With the capacity we have through the multidisciplinary infrastructure team we have put in place, I can assure you it will be completed before the end of this year.
It’s missed five deadlines since its initial completion date in 2019, hasn’t it?
We have just received a report on why the project was delayed. Where it recommends consequence management, we will do that.
Given Gauteng’s implementation record, isn’t your talk of an integrated technology infrastructure for the province pie in the sky?
No. We started working on it last year.
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