Mpumalanga Premier Refilwe Mtsweni-Tsipane has failed dismally to tell the residents of the province about her successes in the last four years, instead, she told us about her predecessors’ successes for the last 30-years.
Residents of Mpumalanga are currently facing several challenges like:
- The growing rate of unemployment: youth unemployment in the province has increased from 43.5% in 2019 to the current 46.5% even after the Premier has invested R258 million to job creation;
- Municipalities that are failing to provide proper services;
- A Mpumalanga Growth Agency (MEGA) that is failing on its mandate;
- The rising costs of living as percentage of people living below poverty line in the province reduced by a mere 14.5% in the last 26-years;
- The Eskom crisis;
- Dilapidated roads that are affecting the tourism sector, combined with high crime in the tourist destinations;
- High rate of Gender Based Violence; and
- Abandoned infrastructure projects that are not completed.
The Premier’s whole SOPA was about congratulating previous Premiers and their administration because she could not praise her own administration. She spoke about historic projects of other Premiers and none in her 5-years of administration.
On Education, she spoke about 6-State of the art boarding schools which were NOT built under her administration. Mkhondo boarding school which is being built under her administration remains incomplete years after construction started because contractors are not paid. She also spoke proudly that the province had no universities before 1994 but now has four. But she failed to mention that Students have to bribe ANC Cadres to be registered in those universities.
With the issue of maternal mortality, the Premier played with words as she said the latest figure was 11.2 per 1000, but according to the department’s latest report it is 18.6 per 100 000.
On tourism, she mentions upgrading nature reserves and the new FlySA route from KMIA to Cape Town, but she could not talk about upgrading the roads that lead to these areas.
On health, the Premier mentioned that Rob Ferreira Hospital has 12 Oncology beds. This in itself is a disgrace taking into consideration that 1 in 4 South Africans are diagnosed with cancer. She also mentioned that 88% of Clinics in the province have an ideal status for NHI (National Health Insurance), but she failed to mention that NOT a single Hospital is compliant.
We also found it strange that she did not mention anything about struggling municipalities like Govan Mbeki and eMalahleni – and how they will deal with the financial crisis they are in.
More worrying is that the Premier did not say anything about Just Energy Transition while the Province is in the process of shutting down five power stations and over 15 coal mines which may affect more than 2.5 million people across the province.
In conclusion, the DA has found Premier Mtsweni-Tsipane’s SOPA a compilation of old announcements that lack the detail of how they will be implemented. We will, however, closely monitor the administration and establish whether these will be implemented.