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Eastern Cape premier Noxolo Kiviet says the Eastern Cape is a better place now than it was 20 years ago.
She delivered her last State of the Province address in Bhisho on Friday, for the term of the current government ahead of the May elections.
Kiviet’s 31-page address gave a comprehensive overview of the successes of her administration over the past five years.
She highlighted the gains her provincial government had made in the eight key priority areas identified by government, including the provincial economy, job creation, education and health, among others.
She said the provincial economy had grown over the past five years at an average of 1.9%, with the unemployment rate at 27 percent.
She noted the role that the two Industrial Development Zones had played in helping to bring investment into the province and the jobs that arose from that.
Kiviet noted that Government’s Expanded Public Works Programme had also led to the creation of numerous job opportunities.
"In the term we have built more than a thousand schools and our decisions to move some of the support services in education like the scholar transport and the school nutrition programs to where they would be managed differently. That decision has helped us have our educators focusing on their core business"
Premier Kiviet added that since 2009, the province had delivered 60 000 houses against a target of 59 000.
She said 362 new schools had also been built or had been renovated, while R11-billion had been spent on road infrastructure.
However, the premier noted that while there had been numerous successes, there are also numerous challenges that still need to be addressed.
These include building a more inclusive economy, addressing social backlogs and strengthening and improving the capacity of local government.
