Note to Broadcasters: Please find the attached soundbite in English by Freddy Sonakile.
Honourable Speaker, Honourable Premier, Honourable Members,
There is a difference between decisive action and election-year panic.
What we heard last week was not a rescue plan; it was a rehabilitation speech delivered five years too late.
Premier, when a government spends an entire term presiding over collapse and then declares the final year the “Year of Decisive Action”, it is not decisive; it is defensive.
You say this is the year to fix local government. The people of the North West are asking: Why now?
Local government – Rhetoric without “how”
Seven pages of your speech focus on fixing municipalities. Yet what is missing is the most important part: how?
Audit outcomes may have improved on paper. But residents do not live inside audit reports. They live with sewage in their streets, water tankers as permanent fixtures, collapsing roads, and uncollected refuse.
Section 139 interventions have been used before. Section 154 support has been promised before. Dashboards have been introduced before.
The crisis in local government is not new. It is the product of political protection, weak consequence management, and administrative instability.
You cannot sanitise systemic decay with a slogan.
The DA will monitor whether this “decisive action” finally includes decisive consequences.
Scholar transport – six months won’t fix a rotten contract
Premier, you propose six-monthly inspections for scholar transport operators, but the current contracts already provide for annual inspections, and even those are failing.
The issue is not inspection frequency. The issue is corruption and weak contracts.
We have seen:
• Buses temporarily hired just to pass inspections
• Operators shielded despite non-compliance
• Learners are left stranded when enforcement is suddenly applied without contingency
Four weeks ago, during Portfolio Committee oversight, it became clear that the Service Level Agreements are fundamentally weak:
• Weak monitoring clauses
• Weak consequence management
• Weak payment controls
• Poor performance enforcement
Six-monthly inspections on a defective contract will not fix the system.
The contract must be restarted and overhauled. Anything less is cosmetic reform.
Infrastructure SA – welcome, but an indictment
We welcome the Memorandum of Cooperation with Infrastructure South Africa.
It reflects positive collaboration at a national level and the positives of GNU.
But let us be honest. If Infrastructure SA must now stabilise infrastructure planning in our province, what does that say about the capacity of our own Provincial Public Works Department?
Projects like Pilanesberg Airport revitalisation should not require outside rescue if our provincial department were fit for purpose.
ISA’s involvement is welcome. But it is also an indictment.
Dick Montshioa Airport – false choice
The DA rejects the narrow proposal of turning Dick Montshioa Airport into purely a cargo hub. This is a strategic asset.
We should pursue both passenger and cargo operations, integrated.
Settling for one is settling for less.
R700 million for Nelson Mandela Drive
Premier, over R700 million has been committed to the Nelson Mandela Drive upgrade.
Previous phases were plagued by:
• Contractor failures
• Delays
• Variation orders of up to R79 million
Communities were promised a premium product. They received something far less.
Before another R700 million is spent, this House deserves the following:
• Full cost breakdowns
• Variation control safeguards
• Contractor vetting transparency
• Consideration of whether part of this allocation could address other collapsing roads in Mahikeng
We will monitor this project closely.
Jobs – temporary or transformational?
You cite 78,000 jobs created. Later, you celebrate over 70,000 EPWP (Expanded Public Works Programme) work opportunities. Are these largely the same jobs? If so, these are temporary relief mechanisms.
When the contracts end, then what?
A province cannot use the Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) as a long-term solution to structural unemployment.
Outside this Legislature last week, youth structures aligned to your own party, SASCO and ANCYL, were protesting for jobs. That image spoke louder than statistics.
Unemployment in this province remains a crisis. We are still of the view that it must be declared a provincial disaster.
Housing – cost per unit
Premier,
You committed R500 million for 1,148 housing units. That equals approximately R430 000 per unit.
This Legislature deserves clarity:
• What are the size and specifications of these units?
• What materials justify that cost?
• How much of this figure includes bulk infrastructure?
• How does this compare to national housing benchmarks?
The DA supports quality housing. But we will not accept inflated pricing hidden behind development language. Transparency must precede construction.
Blocked projects – Mooipan and others
Speaker,
In Mooipan and surrounding communities, residents have waited years with incomplete houses and abandoned slabs. The Human Rights Commission intervened. Recommendations were made. Families pleaded. Yet progress has been painfully slow.
For those families, delay is not administrative. It is humiliating.
We welcome your renewed commitment to unblock projects. But those communities do not need another announcement. They need roofs over their heads.
NTI – Recapitalisation without accountability is recycling failure
On North West Transport Investment: Recapitalisation without accountability is not reform. It is a recycling failure.
Our Portfolio Committee oversight has uncovered deeply disturbing patterns, not just mismanagement but what appears to be coordinated extraction. This was not innocent incompetence. It was an organised collapse.
The DA demands:
• Criminal referrals where evidence exists
• Civil recovery of lost funds
• Immediate suspension of implicated officials
• Full transparency on the equity partner process
Heads must roll. Not symbolic heads.Real heads.Politically connected or not. Because if NTI survives but accountability dies, then nothing has changed.
What we welcome
We welcome:
• SANDF deployment to illegal mining hotspots
• Establishment of a Chemotherapy Unit
• Bulk water investments
• Digital procurement reforms, if implemented transparently
Where there is genuine reform, the DA will support it. But support does not mean silence.
Premier,
You often remind us that there is no GNU in this province. That is correct.
There is no coalition to blame. No opposition running municipalities. No shared responsibility. This is an ANC government. And this is an ANC mess.
You say this is the Year of Decisive Action. The voters may decide it is the Year of Decisive Replacement.
The DA will monitor every contract, every road, every housing unit, every job number, and every SLA.
Where you act in the interests of the people, we will support. Where you fail, protect incompetence, or recycle corruption, we will expose it. Because the North West does not need another year of rhetoric. It needs a government that works.
I thank you.