Lesufi outlines Gauteng's milestones, shortcomings

Gauteng premier Panyaza Lesufi has outlined the province’s milestones and admitted that while the government has made progress in some areas, they have also dropped the ball.

Lesufi delivered his state of the province address (Sopa) at the Nasrec Expo Centre in Johannesburg on Monday evening. This year’s Sopa comes on the back of the National Treasury writing to three metros – City of Joburg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni – on their inability to spend their capital infrastructure grants.

The metros stand to lose millions of rand from Treasury grants. “There are some municipalities that can’t even provide water to our citizens

.“There are some municipalities [that] have turned our province into a dumping province because of refuse that is not collected,” Lesufi said, adding that his government was ready to intervene where municipalities cannot render services.

Gauteng is expected to be one of the hottest contested provinces in the coming national elections as opposition parties want to unseat the ANC from power.

“The Gauteng of 30 years ago and the Gauteng of today are different. We must accept that we have made progress but we must admit that we have dropped the ball,” Lesufi said.

However, highlighting some of the province’s successes, Lesufi said his government exceeded its initial target and that over 7,000 young people were permanently employed as crime prevention wardens with more to be hired by the state to fight crime.

He said the current recruits were being trained by the army in crowd control, drone operating, advanced driving firearm competency.

“They are here to fight crime, they are no longer relying on handouts, they are here permanently employed to go and fight crime in our townships [and] to ensure our communities are safe,” Lesudi said to loud cheers.

He said through private partnerships, his government has been given access to about 7,000 CCTV cameras installed in crime hotspots around the province, including six hostels– Goerge Goch, Jeppe, Denver, MBA, Murray and Roberts, and Rethabile LTA – as well as selected high-risk schools identified by the provincial department of education.

He said the government will introduce new car registration plates that will be easy to trace because the majority of crimes committed in the province involved cars with fake and duplicate number plates.

Lesufi said the province has also acquired two new helicopters and drones that have allowed the establishment of the Gauteng Air Wing unit, which has already seen successes in combating illegal mining.

Lesufi also spoke about what his government had achieved in tackling unemployment. Lesufi, who launched the Nasi iSpani mass recruitment programme in June 16 last year, said close to 90,000 young people were no longer unemployed.

Nasi iSpani is a recruitment drive led by Lesufi to promote job opportunities in the Gauteng government. When it was launched last year, the provincial government received more than 230,000 job applications for 6,044 posts.

“If we consider that in South Africa, on average every employed South African supports 2.8 people, that indicates the impact of the Nasi iSpani job opportunities and the number of families we continue to touch daily,” he said.

He said 32,000 young people contracted to the education assistants programme who were going to join the list of the unemployed, were given appointment letters on February 11.

Lesufi said the extension of their contracts by six months will bring “much-needed cushioning ” until the national government determines how to intervene.

Turning on township economics, Lesufi said his government has invested in various projects including supporting landlords and spaza shop owners and that 3,000 such shops have been refurbished by the state.

He said the province’s commitment to buying goods and services from township enterprises was bearing fruits. “Over the past five years, the GPG (Gauteng provincial government) has spent R15bn on businesses from the townships.

In the last year alone, we spent R2.2bn on township businesses which demonstrates our substantial investment to empowering township communities, leading to increased economic activities, job creation and a positive impact on the unemployment rate.”

The premier said his government was also looking into tarring about 120 roads around Gauteng while installing additional free WiFi in some townships. Lesufi said last year, Gauteng motorists were promised that e-tolls would be a thing of the past.

“I am happy to report that on the 26th of January 2024, a final meeting was held between the Gauteng provincial government and the ministers of finance [EnochGodongwana] and transport [Sindisiwe Chikunga], respectively. We have been able to find common ground on issues related to user pay principle quantum. . .

“From where we sit as the province, we remain confident that we should be able to end e-tolls in March 2024."

• Chabalalaj@sowetan.co.za