Cape
Marion Edmunds
THE Cabinet has dispatched a crack team of civil servants and international experts to Bisho to investigate the administrative chaos in the Eastern Cape.
The team, which includes a deputy director- general, chief directors and Swedish and British experts, is spending two weeks in the Eastern Cape and will report back with recommendations to bring relief to an administration spinning out of control.
Minister of Public Service Zola Skweyiya said the team had been sent after a visit to the Eastern Cape by himself, Deputy President Thabo Mbeki, Finance Minister Trevor Manuel, Constitutional Development Minister Valli Moosa, and Mineral and Energy Minister Penuel Maduna who were concerned with the Eastern Cape’s bad public image.
The arrival of the task team undermines the authority of Eastern Cape Director-General Thozamile Botha, who has been responsible for harnessing the three administrations inherited from apartheid – Eastern Cape, Transkei and Ciskei – into one working provincial government.
The team’s leader, Director General of Public Administration Dr Paseko Ncholo, refused to comment this week, saying he was mandated to report only to the Cabinet. A source in the public service said, however, the situation in the Eastern Cape had grown so bad that the time had come to work out whether the persistent loss of government money was the result of corruption or the extraordinary incompetence of civil servants or was the product of the integration of different homeland administrations.
As an example, he said many civil servants, originally from the Transkei administration in Umtata, were living in hotels in Bisho and driving cars at state expense because the integration of the civil services was not yet complete. Over the past two years frequent media reports about corruption and incompetence have painted a picture of government inertia and waste of taxpayers’ money.
Commentators in organisations such as Idasa and the Black Sash say service delivery is slow or does not happen, the financial administration is disintegrating and confusion, chaos and corruption have taken root in local authorities.
And as the Cabinet acts to address the problems, so the African National Congress- South African Communist Party-Congress of South African Trade Unions alliance is also looking at ways to infuse new leadership into the province and is pushing the ANC treasurer-general, Reverend Arnold Stofile, to leave Parliament and take up the chairmanship of the party in the Eastern Cape.
Stofile confirmed this week that such a move was a strong possibility but said, despite rumours to the contrary, he would not yet be replacing Premier Raymond Mhlaba.
“Over the past two months,” said Stofile, “different sections of the people in the Eastern Cape have approached me and have asked me to make myself available for the provincial leadership elections in November.”
Stofile said he would submit to the will of the party, and move where instructed. However, he said he was not going to oust Mhlaba.
“Oom Ray is my friend … this should not be construed as asking for Oom Ray to step down.”