Counting the costs of wasted economic opportunities    

by Fawzia Rhoda MPL

DA Northern Cape Provincial Spokesperson on Finance  

Note to editors: The following is an extract of the speech delivered today by the DA Provincial Spokesperson for Finance, Economic Development & Tourism, Fawzia Rhoda, MPL, during the debate on the budget of the Northern Cape Department of Economic Development & Tourism held in the Northern Cape Provincial Legislature at a sitting in Kimberley.

From the start of the rationalisation process, we were told that the ultimate goal was to streamline service delivery and contain costs. But the presentation of this budget does not give a clear sense of any real savings that will be made. Instead of reducing costs or redirecting funds to essential services, the department indicated that the newly merged entities will now benefit from newly created posts that did not exist before. When asked about costs, the department unsuccessfully tried to claim that this process did not cost the government anything but time. 

To call that claim an outright lie is to be polite. 

We already know from the department’s own annual report on the 2016/17 financial year that it had spent nearly four hundred thousand rand for three months of consulting work on the proposed rationalisation of provincial public entities. 

We still don’t know how much this process is ultimately going to cost the province – either in terms of wasted finances or in terms of wasted economic opportunities. 

Nowhere in the presentation or in the budget do we get the sense that the department or its entities are sufficiently prepared to implement specialised mandates. In fact, the annual performance plan still refers to the four former entities instead of reflecting accurately on the two entities that currently exist in terms of provincial law. When asked why it did not update its plans to reflect the legal reality accurately, the department lamely averred that it did not know that it could make such amendments!

With friends like these, the Northern Cape economy does not need enemies!