The R220 million, that was meant to give drought-stricken communities and farmers in KwaZulu-Natal some relief, has seemingly vanished in a flourish of orchestrated thievery. This situation has, for instance, had a devastating effect on the Pomeroy Community Health Centre in Msinga which must keep water in dustbins just to flush toilets.

It also is a great disappointment that four years have passed without the incumbent opposition parties in the KwaZulu-Natal legislature raising the issue of the “missing” R220 million drought-relief funds. If it had not been for the media making noise about it, the public would have been none the wiser.

This is a similar scenario to where it was alleged that R300,000 of a R28 million allocation for the North Sea Jazz Festival made its way into the ruling party’s current deputy provincial chairperson, Mike Mabuyakhulu’s pockets. Yet, the serving opposition parties kept mum which raises ugly questions about trustworthiness.

Firstly, R220 million cannot just disappear into thin air and secondly, there must be a paper trail. It cannot take four years for someone to take a physical walk to the finance department to look at the batch of documents that would have been prepared to authorise payments.

It cannot be denied that corruption and alleged corruption committed by those mainly in the ruling party’s administrations (be it at local, provincial and national government levels) is prevalent. It is as if the word “corruption” has become synonymous with the name of the ruling party. Hence, the so-called self-correcting nature of the ruling party has become a flimsy expression that is automatically spouted when they are in trouble.

The United Democratic Movement in KwaZulu-Natal calls on MEC for cooperative governance and traditional affairs Nomusa Dube-Ncube, the ruling party, and all opposition parties in the legislature to at least respect voters’ intelligence and let the public know what is going on under their watch.

We, accordingly, encourage the voters of KwaZulu-Natal to punish both the ruling party and all current opposition parties as it seems that they are all working together in stealing from the public.

Issued by
Mr Boysey Gumede
Interim Provincial Secretary
UDM in KwaZulu-Natal