Eastern Cape Premier Oscar Mabuyane has established a Provincial "Crack Team" to assist the government in scaling up the implementation of its commitments in critical areas.
He says this move follows the pronouncement made in his 2023 State of the Province Address to implement various interventions.
According to the Premier, the team known as the Provincial Support Unit, (PSU) will focus on five critical areas the government identified as lagging during their monitoring and evaluation processes.
For the next year, the PSU will focus on investment coordination in the province, provide support to local government, drive education and health turnaround strategies, coordinate designated groups and state machinery transformation, and finally, drive strategic and catalytic projects.
The Premier said one of the seven priorities of the ANC-led government was building a capable, ethical, and developmental state, and as such, the PSU is made up of a high-powered team of leaders with capabilities and skills in public administration.
With effect from 1 October, eight senior government officials consisting of several Heads of Departments (HODs) were reassigned to be part of the team.
The HODs for Health, Transport, Human Settlements, Agriculture, Cogta, Transport and Rural Development, and Agrarian Reform have now all been replaced by Acting HODs in the interim.
The HOD for Health, Dr Rolene Wagner, has been in the news recently amid speculations of being fired from her job. She will also serve as part of the PSU.
According to the Daily Dispatch, over 100 healthcare professionals had written to the Premier pleading with him to return Wagner to her position as HOD while a large group of more than 160 eminent medical academics, experts, and lecturers also wrote to Mabuyane calling for Wagner's reinstatement.
Some of the letters noted that Wagner is behind the roll-out of digital health record systems to 26 hospitals, she has eliminated unauthorized and irregular expenditure from R200 million in the 2020/2021 financial year to R6.7 million in the 2022/2023 financial year.
The healthcare professionals further said removing Wagner would destabilize Eastern Cape Health leadership and directly contribute to the deteriorating levels of service delivery in the province.
During the briefing, the Premier assured Algoa FM News that no staff members were being expelled.
"There is no staff that is being expelled, we are reassigning having done a thorough assessment on capabilities and competencies as government.
“Dr. Wagner is part of this team, we recruited her back into the province to serve, and she has done her level best in steering the ship with all the challenges that have been there for decades. Now we are collectively trying to find a panacea to address such issues.”
Meanwhile, the DA was less than impressed, calling this reassignment a “smokescreen to hide a collapsing administration.”
DA Shadow MEC for Finance, Yusuf Cassim, said the announcement of the "crack team" reveals a provincial government in panic mode as the executive members and their HODs have failed to deal effectively with the challenges in their departments.
He further claimed that the Premier was scared and unable to hold his MECs accountable.
