Pretoria- Gauteng Premier David Makhura says the provincial government will ensure the youth become the main drivers and beneficiaries of socio-economic programmes.
“In us you have a government that will provide a helping hand and a springboard from which you can launch your dreams,” he said on Thursday, delivering the Budget Vote for the Office of the Premier.
He called on the youth to help the provincial government in its quest to radically transform, modernise and re-industrialise the province and the country.
Premier Makhura told Members of the Provincial Legislature that major developments in energy, public transport, housing and ICT broadband roll out to ensure that South Africa’s economic capital was continually humming would be announced at the inaugural Gauteng Infrastructure Investment Conference.
The conference is scheduled for 16-17 July.
“After the conference, we will make major announcements with the cities of Joburg and Tshwane on coal-fired stations and solar rooftop panels to keep the lights on and power the economy of our province,” said Makhura.
The focus, he said, would also shift towards implementation now that local and provincial government was united around the Transformation, Modernisation and Re-industrialisation goal.
Regarding the province’s health, the Premier revealed that the ailing Department of Health had shown signs of recovery and will be removed from administration as a result of improved financial and management interventions.
The Department of Infrastructure Development also achieved a major turnaround by spending 99% of its budget by the end of March 2015.
Premier Makhura, who promised an activist administration when he took office 12 months ago, said the newly established Service Delivery War Room would ensure he lived up to his word.
He said through Ntirhisano Service Delivery War Room, the provincial government had been able to respond effectively to various issues such as community protests, attacks on foreign nationals, illegal land invasions, crime and corruption incidents.
“We are taking steps to finalise the infrastructure and human resource capacity of all war rooms so that they can be centres of service excellence.”
The government has adopted a comprehensive Gauteng Governance and Administration Roadmap to clean up the administration and build a high-performance team of civil servants.
“In addition to the rollout of the open tender system and the introduction of integrity champions in key departments that have high incidents of corruption, we will soon launch anti-corruption campaigns in which we will work with municipalities and civil society and law enforcement agencies,” the Premier said.
With regard to corruption, he said, Gauteng’s anti-corruption operations will target departments and agencies that have high incidents of corruption. These include driving licence testing centres, school governing bodies, traffic and police officers, among others.
Turning to e-tolls, the Premier thanked the residents of Gauteng for their patience during the e-tolls deliberations and urged them to pay the discounted rate under the new dispensation.
The new e-toll dispensation includes a single, reduced tariff of 30 cents per kilometre which will apply to all motorists using the e-tolled network in the province, as well as a monthly cap that has been reduced to R225 a month for standard vehicles.
E-toll fees that are currently outstanding will be discounted by 60% and motorists that use tolled roads will have six months within which to settle their debts dating back to December 2013 at the discounted tariff.
According to the new dispensation, motorists in arrears on their e-toll account will have to settle their outstanding debt before renewing their car licence discs.-SAnews.gov.za
