KwaZulu-Natal Premier, Thami Ntuli has highlighted unemployment, poverty, service delivery and the rising cost of living as some of the challenges the province is grappling with.
Ntuli was delivering his State of the Province Address (SOPA) in Pietermaritzburg. He says despite these difficulties, his administration, which took office eight months ago, remains resolute in its mission to build a government that is responsive, transparent, and driven by the needs of the people.
He says the provincial government has set a target of securing investments worth R4-billion in the 2025/26 financial year. He says these investments are expected to generate 5 000 jobs, significantly addressing unemployment and improving livelihoods across the province.
Ntuli also announced focus areas to respond to, priorities that were announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa during his State of the Nation Address (SONA).
“Linked to these national priorities, as KwaZulu-Natal we came up with eight focus areas, namely: rebuilding the economy; strengthening local government and governance, sustainable development; improving healthcare and education; delivering better human settlements and infrastructure; improving community safety; mitigating climate change; and building a capable, ethical and developmental state.”
Ntuli says they will revitalise agricultural sectors to ensure food security and job creation.
“Agriculture remains a cornerstone of our economy, and we are committed to revitalising this sector through bold interventions. In this regard, we are implementing the following initiatives, amongst others: agricultural project funding, we have implemented an open-call funding mechanism, allowing smallholder and emerging farmers to access funding of up to R2 million per individual. This initiative will accelerate commercialisation and food security, ensuring a more inclusive agricultural economy and creating jobs.”
Political parties who are members of the government of provincial unity, the Democratic Alliance (DA) and the African National Congress (ANC) have welcomed the Premier’s address.
“Positivity from the budget perspective from what the Premier tabled today is the fact that for the first time in five years we are not having a cut in our equitable share ground from the national treasury. It is the first time in five years. That’s positive and we are actually getting an additional R4 billion over three years, that helps us. Our conditional grand allocation has increased. Just two days ago, I heard that we were getting an extra R100 million for human settlements, for housing which was unspent in other departments through other provinces. We are placed nicely to be able to regain what we lost post Covid in the economy,” says the DA’s Francois Rodgers.
The ANC’s Nomusa Dube-Ncube says she is happy that the Premier’s speech touched on growing the economy, poverty-alleviation and job creation.
“What we want to see then as the African National Congress is those things happening. Because it is well and good for us to come here and listen to the speech and say, yes, this is what the President has given us as the marching line.
How do we then make sure that people do not go without water for three months, do not go without getting employment, without any indication as to whether there is a plan?
As the President has already indicated, and we would like see now the MECs coming, as the Premier has sai,d with those to implement implementable programmes that direct communities to say, this is how this is going to happen.
I’m also happy to hear that the Premier is talking about the municipalities, we are very concerned as the African National Congress that the municipalities are becoming more and more unviable, many municipalities do not have funding and many municipalities are not able to manage their revenue.”
The MK Party’s Musa Mkhize believes there was nothing tangible in the speech,
“It’s one of those days where you will spend the whole day listening to the misinterpretation of what is needed to be done, particularly for the majority of people of KwaZulu-Natal. Listening to lies when there’s no money, there are no jobs, there’s no employment, the women have no skills and jobs, there is no rural development. None of those things were mentioned by the Premier.
There is no medication in hospitals and clinics, worse still for people at the local clinics, government is supposed to be rendering services, giving scripts to go to private pharmacies to buy medication, none of those were touched on by the Premier, absolutely there’s nothing that he said.”
The Premier says his office will investigate public concerns over the availability of medicine at some healthcare facilities in light of operational changes that were put in place by the Department of Health.
