The Democratic Alliance in the Eastern Cape said Premier Phumulo Masualle's State of the Province Address on Friday lacked heart, soul, and substance.
DA MPL, Bobby Stevenson said, “it failed to ignite the flame necessary to bring about total change.”
He said Masualle’s speech was overshadowed by two events, firstly, the impending ANC reshuffle of the Provincial cabinet. “We were listening to a dead man walking,” Stevenson said.
“Secondly, the national budget has completely taken the wind out of the Premier’s sails. There has been a reduction in the School Infrastructure Grant and the Human Settlements Grant. This means that in our province, where there are thousands of schools without running water or electricity, decent ablution facilities and mud-structure schools, learners are going to continue to suffer.”
Stevenson said with regards to the reduction in the Human Settlements Grant, it meant that “thousands and thousands of people who have been eagerly waiting for shelter, are going to be denied this opportunity.”
He said the provincial equitable share is only scheduled to increase by about 5% which means that the Eastern Cape is going to backwards as far as service delivery was concerned “because the increase in benefits to civil servants will surely be more than that.”
Stevenson said this is all a result of the economic mismanagement that has taken place under the ANC over the last number of years.
“What we need in this province is not patch-fixing, but instead total change that will bring real freedom and opportunity to the people of the Eastern Cape.”
