On, Saturday, 4 May 2013, the North West Provincial Legislature's Portfolio Committee on Public Works, Roads and Transport has commended the Department of Public Works, Roads and Transport for a job well done on its Annual Performance Plan during a meeting held at NTI Offices in Hammanskraal.
Chairperson of the Committee, Hon. Hoffman Galeng said he wants to give credit to the department for the fact that, there are no longer scholar transport service providers coming to complain to the Committee for non-payment.
“I like the fact that I see plans are in place to make sure that there are no hiccups in scholar transport this year,” said Hon Galeng. He said this responding to a presentation made by the Acting Head of Department, Mr Magothi Samuel Thobagale.
Mr Thobagale said the department is in a process of changing month to month scholar transport contracts, so as to curb the corruption and scholar transport woes in the province.
MEC Elisha added that they are busy trying to clean up the department of crooked things. “We are busy trying to clean up, we have done an audit, corrected discrepancies in rates, contracts and payments.
“Appointments of Supply Chain Management Committees have also been finalised to ensure speed service delivery to the people,” said MEC Elisha. They also produced a list of roads that they will be working on in this financial year.
The Committee condemned the lack of capacity in the department and also welcomed MEC Elisha’s explanation that they are in a process of finalising appointments in all vacant senior positions in the department.
“Employees under disciplinary action are delaying us by making sure that they prolong the cases by changing legal representatives. We are now looking at ways of introducing suspensions without pay so as to put pressure on employees to opt for cases to be finalised as soon as possible,” he said.
The Committee also recommended that the department must also empower women in their plan and also address the issue of the house of the Speaker that resides another person who is not the Speaker of the Legislature.
MEC Elisha welcomed the Committee’s inputs and lambasted sister departments for not planning properly. “I am no longer going to be modest about this, the article that you saw on the Mail made me very angry. Sister departments do not plan properly for the monies allocated to them.
“How can you ask us to start a project by December for the same financial year. We are not taking any projects that are late,” said MEC Elisha. The Committee has also requested MEC Elisha to look into re-opening the Mafikeng Airport.
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