I watched the SABC2 interview with President Thabo Mbeki the other night.

I watched the SABC2 interview with President Thabo Mbeki the other night.

I thought it was a very frank, open and no-holds-barred discussion. It seems that Mbeki wants to see all the government's policies implemented, but as he said, a lack of capacity of some of the office bearers or people in charge is hampering service delivery and development.

From my observation this is because of a lack of constant supervision. I believe that every project initiated by the government must have someone from one of the opposition parties monitoring it.

For instance, Patricia de Lille should be on the tender board monitoring watchdog committee, where she should ensure that housing tenders are allocated fairly. She should also ensure that bidding companies have no connections in parliament or the municipality. I suggest De Lille because of her past record in this regard.

Someone like Douglas Gibson should go to the townships to see that municipalities provide services in a correct manner. And if he discovers that a councillor is living in a RDP house, he should report the matter and have it attended to.

Kenneth Meshoe should be on the Aids watchdog committee to oversee all government programmes on the pandemic.

I am not impressed when a minister, MEC or mayor appears on TV and says "Give us the evidence", when they in fact know that no one in the community is that brave because they know that they will be victimised. People only talk freely at imbizos because they feel safe in groups and cannot be singled out.

Just as Finance Minister Trevor Manuel encourages Tips for Trevor from the public in regard to his budget, so too must MECs, mayors and the president consult the people.

David Lucas, Rosebank