Note to Editors: Please find the attached soundbite in English by Freddy Sonakile MPL.
The DA is appalled by the North West Government’s decision to ‘donate’ 20 animal drawn carts to some residents in the Dibono and Manawana villages outside Mahikeng, instead of developing roads and transport infrastructure, building clinics and schools within reach of the community. See images here, here, and here.
Community Safety and Transport Management MEC Sello Lehari, unashamedly arrived at the villages with his convoy of blue light German luxury vehicles, to donate donkey carts to beneficiaries within the community to use as a mode of transport to clinics, shops and a school which is 20 kilometres away in a neighbouring village.
This is an indictment on this government, and they should be ashamed. The learners of Dibono and Manawana are expected to travel in a donkey cart over a gruelling distance of 20 kilometres twice a day, sometimes in adverse weather conditions, yet this department is also responsible for managing scholar transport system in the province.
Municipalities returned R138 million in unspent conditional grants, including the unspent Municipal Infrastructure Grant, to Treasury which could have been used for building a clinic, a school and a shopping centre within reach of these villages.
This move by the department is not even in line with the outdated, 15-year-old Rural Transport Strategy adopted in 2007, which seeks to develop a demand-responsive, balanced, and sustainable integrated rural transport system.
The tender was awarded to LKT Business Enterprises to supply the department with donkey carts over a period of three years. The financial cost for the 2×1.2m cart is set at R32,000.00, the 3×1.5 cart comes in at R45,500.00 a unit.
MEC Lehari has demonstrated yet again that the North West Government does not have a plan to address socio-economic injustices rural communities continue to endure, but would much rather keep rural villages primitive.
The DA will be submitting questions to MEC Lehari to explain the total number of carts to be procured over three years, the total financial cost of the contract, whether a feasibility study was conducted, how the beneficiaries were identified and selected and what the department will do to ensure adequate scholar transport for the learners of Dibono and Manawana villages.
This is another classic example that after 28 years of ANC failed governance, the more things change, the more they stay the same.