Evidence wa ka Ngobeni
The Pan Africanist Congress in the Eastern Cape has slammed the provincial administration for failing to spend funds earmarked for service delivery programmes in the rural areas.
Speaking after the party’s Eastern Cape regional congress at the weekend, PAC leaders said the party was concerned about the provincial government’s failure to spend funds earmarked for rural housing and HIV/Aids programmes.
The PAC also lashed out at the provincial government for its handling of welfare grants. The Eastern Cape government is facing a class action by welfare beneficiaries after they had their grants unlawfully cancelled.
Eastern Cape PAC MPL Zingisa Mkhabile slated the Department of Health for failing to spend R33-million budgeted for Aids programmes in the 2000/2001 financial year.
“Several non-governmental organisations involved in the fight against HIV/Aids have made applications in the past to access the funds but their applications are yet to be processed,” he said.
“Taking into consideration that the Eastern Cape has one of the highest HIV/Aids infections in the country it is indeed hard to understand why they fail to use the funds.”
Eastern Cape health department representative Mahlubandile Mageda confirmed that his department had failed to spend the R33-million set aside for Aids programmes.
He said, however, his department has explained the circumstances that led to the failure to use the R33-million to the legislature.
“It is a long story and it was presented to the provincial legislature of which Mr Mkhabile is a member,” he said.
“It is indecorous for a man of such calibre [Mkhabile] to ramble around for cheap political points.
“HIV/Aids is so sensitive that uttering negative statements to demoralise those who wish to be and those already engaged in HIV/Aids programmes is quite an expensive exercise, while the government is doing all at her [sic] disposal to fight the scourge,” Mageda said.
Mkhabile hit back saying the under-spending “was clearly due to incompetence and inefficiency on the part of the health department”.
Mkhabile also raised concerns about under-spending of funds allocated for rural housing by the Eastern Cape Department of Housing.
He claims the housing department was awarded more than R552-million to build low-cost houses in the province’s rural areas but had spent only R75-million in the first quarter of the financial year.
“This is really criminal of the department not to spend the money allocated for rural housing while there is a huge housing backlog in the province,” he said.
Eastern Cape Department of Housing representative Bulelo Linda said the funds allocated for rural housing “is being looked at in various ways, not just building houses”.
Linda said the housing department was conducting a needs analysis to determine the highest priorities for the rural communities and that his department was using the rural housing funds to fund income generation projects for poor communities.
“It is the responsibility of the community to apply for funding. They can apply to various departments and those applications will come back to us. We may use the rural housing funds to help them start a project, for example.”