By KEDIBONE MOALETSI
North West Premier, Bushy Maape said the province is now in a better position since the invocation of Section 100 1 (a) (b) by the national government in 2018.
Maape, who tabled the Office of the Premier’s budget for 2022/2023 financial year, said this has been shown through performance reports of various departments since last week and was further demonstrated through the performance report of his office.
“It is my privilege to table before this esteemed House for appropriation, the 2022/23 budget for Office of the Premier. The administration will be allocated R114.825m, while the institutional development will receive R251.097m.
“The policy and governance will be allocated R106.589m and the total will be to the tune of R472.511m. In February 2022, Cabinet approved the Inter-Ministerial Task Team’s (IMTT) plan for a phased exit. This decision was communicated to the National Council of Provinces by the Convenor, Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma on 23 March 2022,” he said.
Maape further said no opposition was raised by the NCOP with regards to the decision of cabinet to support the phased exit started on 31 March 2022. He added that it is expected that all departments under section 100(1)(b) will complete their exit activities by the end of June 2022.
“A detailed hand-over report will be submitted to the Minister responsible for each department as well as the coordinator, who is the administrator in the Office of the Premier.
“Amongst the issues to be included in the report, will include the achievements and progress made to address the reasons for the intervention, outstanding matters, issues of concern and recommendations to address lessons learnt, progress against the original implementation plan, as submitted to the NCOP in the 5th administration,” said Maape.
He said the report will also include a list of directives to be issued to the provincial executive to address outstanding priorities and areas vulnerable to regression, if required.
Maape said as part of the phased exit approach, they continue to carefully manage the transition and de-escalation of certain elements of the intervention, providing for the transfer of management and control of aspects of provincial administration previously assumed by national government departments since 2018.
He said the province is also working with the national government through the Inter-Ministerial Task Team led by Dlamini-Zuma to manage the transition and the eventual lifting of the intervention in a manner that does not erode and undermine the gains made by the province.
“We welcome the lifting of section 100, though we must say we are anxious and worried about it, as we understood and appreciated the need for such intervention on the part of the national government.
“As we build internal capacity to deal with these historical cases, the Office of the Premier is also working with Provincial Treasury to assist the provincial departments to address their own cases,” he said.
Maape said this strategy has been adopted in order to transfer knowledge and skills to officials and to solidify an engine of internal control in and across the province in order to rid the provincial administration of the negative image of poor financial management.
“I wish to report to this house that during the period under review, the Office of the Premier paid 96% of service providers within 30 days as prescribed with the under-performance translating to only R3.812 million from a total spending of R305 millions of allocated operational budget.
“The office spent 83% of its allocated budget and allow me to conclude by providing key highlights and justification for the appropriation we wish this house to make for the Office of the Premier in the 2022/23 Financial Year,” said Maape.
He said ICT Transformation Programme is budgeted at R116.8 million, while the provincial communication services are budgeted at R8 million and the bursary funding is budgeted at R4.4 million.
Maape said the review of the provincial spatial development framework is budgeted at R1 million.
“We will also increase the support of the Foundations such as Moses Kotane, Mama Ruth Mompati, JB Marks and Onkgopotse Tiro from R100 000 to R200 000 this financial year.
“Women and Rights of Children activities/intervention is budgeted at R1.1 million, disability and older persons’ activities/intervention is budgeted at R1.2 million, while mega and infrastructure programmes are budgeted at R1 million,” he said.
The Guardian 