Premier Phumulo Masualle summoned all the province’s accounting officers and strategic senior managers yesterday to instruct them to speed up service delivery.
The day-long meeting at the Abbotsford Christian Centre in East London was a second “attempt to ensure alignment of thought and action between the political and administrative leadership”, he said.
The province is battling to improve its image and be declared a “province at work” like KwaZulu-Natal, Western Cape and Gauteng, where road networks are world class and education, including matric results, are above the national average.
The Eastern Cape was at the bottom of last year’s matric class at 56.8% – far short of its 70% target.
The quality of education in lower grades also leaves much to be desired, according to a recent University of Stellenbosch report.
The Dispatch reported last month that the study found one in four Eastern Cape pupils in grades 1-3 were likely to struggle in later grades as they could not read.
Masualle said: “From where I sit, we have to constantly strive for improvement of the performance of our administration. Where there are signs of under-performance we have got to work much harder so that we achieve the targets we set ourselves.
“This was just a review meeting where we look at how to add impetus to what we are doing.”
Also at the conference was former auditor-general Terrence Nombembe, Environmental Affairs DG Nosipho Ngcaba and National Treasury deputy DG Dondo Mogajane.
A setback in the province this year was when Treasury cut the schools’ infrastructure budget by more than R500-million after the education department failed to spend its 2015-6 grant by March 31.
“It’s something we are working hard to avoid a repeat of,” said the premier.
He added that they had since convinced the national government not to cut the budget, after identifying several needy schools which could make use of the funds immediately.
But going forward, Masualle said, the government has also put in place “measures between the departments of education, treasury and public works which are aimed at making sure that we do not have a repeat of what we had the last time.
“Not only in education, but also in other infrastructure departments.
“We are now in the second month of the year. We are monitoring that situation.
“By end of July we shall be reflecting on the first quarter.
“We are observing the behaviour and the performance of the delivery of infrastructure as per plan.”
The meeting comes a few weeks after Auditor-General Kimi Makwetu published his findings for the 2014-15 financial year on the running of municipalities.
Joe Gqabi district municipality in Aliwal North was hailed for receiving a clean audit, and the Eastern Cape was credited for being one of the few provinces showing signs of improvement in handling of finances across municipalities, except in OR Tambo district.
Masualle agreed with Makwethu that the performance of the province’s municipalities was uneven.
“There are those that are fairly demonstrating the management of their resources and their affairs.
“The performance of these municipalities is acceptable but there are those that are not.
“I would say that there is still room for improvement,” he added.
State looks to ramp up service delivery
The day-long meeting at the Abbotsford Christian Centre in East London was a second “attempt to ensure alignment of thought and action between the political and administrative leadership”, he said.
The province is battling to improve its image and be declared a “province at work” like KwaZulu-Natal, Western Cape and Gauteng, where road networks are world class and education, including matric results, are above the national average.
The Eastern Cape was at the bottom of last year’s matric class at 56.8% – far short of its 70% target.
The quality of education in lower grades also leaves much to be desired, according to a recent University of Stellenbosch report.
The Dispatch reported last month that the study found one in four Eastern Cape pupils in grades 1-3 were likely to struggle in later grades as they could not read.
Masualle said: “From where I sit, we have to constantly strive for improvement of the performance of our administration. Where there are signs of under-performance we have got to work much harder so that we achieve the targets we set ourselves.
“This was just a review meeting where we look at how to add impetus to what we are doing.”
Also at the conference was former auditor-general Terrence Nombembe, Environmental Affairs DG Nosipho Ngcaba and National Treasury deputy DG Dondo Mogajane.
A setback in the province this year was when Treasury cut the schools’ infrastructure budget by more than R500-million after the education department failed to spend its 2015-6 grant by March 31.
“It’s something we are working hard to avoid a repeat of,” said the premier.
He added that they had since convinced the national government not to cut the budget, after identifying several needy schools which could make use of the funds immediately.
But going forward, Masualle said, the government has also put in place “measures between the departments of education, treasury and public works which are aimed at making sure that we do not have a repeat of what we had the last time.
“Not only in education, but also in other infrastructure departments.
“We are now in the second month of the year. We are monitoring that situation.
“By end of July we shall be reflecting on the first quarter.
“We are observing the behaviour and the performance of the delivery of infrastructure as per plan.”
The meeting comes a few weeks after Auditor-General Kimi Makwetu published his findings for the 2014-15 financial year on the running of municipalities.
Joe Gqabi district municipality in Aliwal North was hailed for receiving a clean audit, and the Eastern Cape was credited for being one of the few provinces showing signs of improvement in handling of finances across municipalities, except in OR Tambo district.
Masualle agreed with Makwethu that the performance of the province’s municipalities was uneven.
“There are those that are fairly demonstrating the management of their resources and their affairs.
“The performance of these municipalities is acceptable but there are those that are not.
“I would say that there is still room for improvement,” he added.
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