Follow human settlements’ example

THIS was the week that was:

Reward for spending

National Treasury has given the NMBM more than R170-million more as a reward for spending its full allocation for human settlement projects in the 2016-17 year.

This is an example other departments must follow.

With good planning and timeous preparation of specifications and tender documents, projects can be completed on time and budgets spent.

Monitoring of progress against key deliverables in the plans will enable delays to be overcome with contingency plans and extra technical resources.

If necessary, as the MBDA has shown, specialised project management skills may need to be contracted in for a short period to facilitate the completion process.

It is worth it to ensure delivery of outputs (houses, infrastructure, maintenance, etc) and to be eligible for the reallocation of unspent funds from Treasury.

Athol Trollip saga

The Athol Trollip saga can be turned around to the DA’s favour if the EFF and the ANC try to disrupt the process!

Already they have shown their true colours by Julius Malema’s references to the whiteness of the current mayor!

This is just what the DA wanted, rather than base the no-confidence vote on performance or the expropriation of land without compensation issues.

Coalition government is bound to end up in short-term bargaining over positions and political favours.

But service delivery and economic growth (with jobs) are not achieved by short-term decisions.

They require collective support for carefully planned and budgeted initiatives, not something that the EFF is well versed in!

Australia’s ball tampering

One last word on the Australian team’s ball-tampering issue:

I believe all the team members knew what was going on, even the non-playing members.

They were aware of the “sand paper” and I think they would have made their views known!

I don’t believe that Steve Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft were the only ones supporting the cheating.

The problem CA had was that there was a need to have 11 players left in South Africa to play in the fourth test!

Tony Wadsworth, Port Elizabeth