North West Portfolio Committee on Publics Works resolves to table a report that recommends invoking section 100

The North West Provincial Legislature’s Portfolio Committee on Public Works, Roads and Transport has resolved to call upon the Minister of Public Works, Thulas Nxesi and Minister of Transport, Ben Martins, to invoke Section 100 (1)(b) of the Constitution on the Department of Public works, Roads and Transport.

Section 100 states that when a province cannot or does not fulfill an executive obligation in terms of legislation or the Constitution, the national executive may intervene by taking any appropriate steps to ensure fulfillment of that obligation.

The committee intends to table a report to the House that recommends that the committee must inform the two ministers on what the committee calls the collapse of the provincial Public Works, Roads and Transport Department.

This came after the committee had invited the Premier, Mme Thandi Modise, to a meeting to discuss the collapse of the department and the conduct of MEC Raymond Elisha. Premier Modise did not honour the invite and instead wrote a letter to the Speaker of the Legislature, Hon. Supra Mahumapelo and copied Chairperson of Chairpersons, Hon. Patrick Pelele and the Portfolio Committee Chair, Hon. Hoffman Galeng stating that she is “of the opinion that it is not advisable to appear before the committee and debate what was supposed to have been done vis -a’-vis what has already been done and communicated”.

The Premier was referring to reports from newspapers that the committee had written to the Minister of Public Works already. The committee had resolved to do that in a meeting held on 14 September and on 19 September, the committee met again and decided to call the Premier first before sending the letter to the national minister.

In a heated discussion, members of the Portfolio Committee felt that the Premier has undermined and disrespected the Committee.

Chairperson of the Committee, Hon. Galeng said the Committee had decided to withhold the letter and exhaust internal measures by bringing the Premier on board of what is happening in that department.

He said amongst the issues that led to the committee to come to this conclusion was the fact that the first quarterly report shows nothing has been done or spent on the more than R3 billion budget allocated to the department in April.

“There are no plans in place on how they are going to spend the budget. Learners are not going to school because service providers for scholar transport have not been paid.

“Last year we returned more than R600 million to national treasury because it was not spent, and yet our roads are in a bad state. Officials that were adjudicating on the tender for Koster-Lichtenburg Road tender were suspended and are sitting at home with full pay,” said Hon. Galeng.

Cope leader, Hon. Nikiwe Num, who is also a member of the Portfolio Committee said she is disappointed at how the Premier has handled the matter.

“The conduct of the Premier is disrespectful to the committee, she is undermining a legally constituted committee and setting a precedence for all Executive Members to disrespect the Legislature Committees.

“It was not by default on our part to ask the head of government to appear to this committee. This provincial department is collapsing right in front of our eyes and we cannot be that irresponsible and display an ‘I don’t care attitude”, said Hon. Num.

“The department has had five heads of department in the past 12 months. The MEC does not honuor invitations to come and account to the committee and he has the audacity to even prevent his staff from accounting to the committee,” said Hon. Galeng.

The committee also said they will write to the Legislature Speaker, Hon. Mahumapelo, and inform him of the conduct and behaviour of the Premier.

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