Delivery timing

At a BCM meeting to discuss the new budget on Friday May 29, chief whip Mawethu Marata proposed that the meeting be postponed so that a workshop could take place as the budget needed to be “pro-poor because we are heading into an election year”.

As the DA, we welcome pro-poor budgeting on a continuous basis, and intentionally implement that principle wherever we govern, even while we ensure the budget for maintaining existing infrastructure is enough.

One wonders how many strategic service delivery issues affecting the poor are intentionally deferred so that the ANC can sort them out just before an election in order to garner the vote. One could cite many examples but perhaps two will suffice. The first is sanitation in Orange Grove informal settlement near the East London airport. It has been raised many times to no avail. Amazingly, two months before the 2014 general election the community received two toilet blocks of ten toilets each. Ironically, these have never worked due to low water pressure.

Second, and also affecting the Orange Grove community, the airport bypass road, which runs from Settlers Way to Fort Grey TB Hospital, was in dire need of resurfacing and speed bumps for years. This was even reported on by the Dispatch in August 2014. I regularly raised it. It was resurfaced and speed bumps erected — exactly three months before the 2016 local government election.

Coincidence?

The ANC likes to portray itself as a government that cares for “our people ”— yet it uses carefully timed service delivery to manipulate the poor for votes.

— Councillor Sue Bentley, BCM DA Caucus