NMB coalition led by all its partners
With reference to Ed Richardson’s letter (The Herald, September 9) and Retief Odendaal of the DA’s letter (The Herald, September 10), it is important that the public receives accurate information.
Thank you, Ed, for your letter and for having the courage to raise your concern.
The NMBM needs more involved citizens to maintain a healthy democracy and hold those in power accountable.
But due to lack of clarity, for whatever reason, the media report you referred to (The Herald, September 2) made it seem as if R15m was spent on one park and in the DA’s letter (The Herald, September 10), DA is claiming they were responsible for the development of the park.
To clarify, and to correct the assumption that the DA is responsible for getting everything done, as opined by Retief, the NMBM is led by a coalition government, led by coalition partners: ACDP, COPE, UDM, AIC and the DA.
First of all, this is not a DAled coalition, but a coalition government led by all its partners.
Our coalition agreement provides that political parties are allowed to run their directorates independently.
The ACDP is leading public health and the changes currently seen in that directorate are because of the political leadership that the ACDP is bringing to that directorate.
When the ACDP took over the public health portfolio in December 2020, the capital expenditure stood at a meagre 11% after two terms under the previous ANC coalition.
Now if the capital budget is not spent within a financial year, that money is lost to the people and the community it intended to benefit.
But since December, public health that is under political leadership of the ACDP has spent about 95% of this budget during Covid-19 and has performed better than most directorates during the same period.
As for the cost of most of the parks built by public health during 2020/2021, the cost on average is about R1.3m, but the park in Motherwell is bigger and cost about R1.8m.
As we approach the local government elections, I appeal to the public to be vigilant about the deception political parties may employ to score cheap political points.