Johannesburg mayor Parks Tau's promise of R100 billion infrastructure spend is ambitious, the DA in the city's legislature said on Friday.
“The promise of a R100 billion infrastructure spend is an ambitious promise against the incapacity to spend the average of R3 billion annually on (capital expenditure) in the city at present,” DA leader in the Joburg caucus Mmusi Maimane said.
This was in response to Tau's state-of-the-city address on Thursday, in which this planned spending on the city's infrastructure was revealed.
“As it is, even with national intervention into health care in the province, it still can't pay nurses in city clinics and extended clinic services have been suspended,” he said.
The DA found the delivery of houses “ambiguous” as many people in Protea South, Diepsloot and Zandspruit faced winter without shelter.
“While Cosmo and Lefhareng are held as successful examples, let us not claim easy victories, for the climb in terms of the delivery of housing is still steep,” said Maimane.
The DA would “relentlessly” hold the city to account for its promise to resolve problems in billing for services.
Maimane said the city had to start providing basic services to the poor.
In Soweto, free electricity provision for the poor had “all but” been suspended, and the six kilolitres of free water that every home should receive, was not enough for the poor.
“If the pursuit of a developmental state is the ambition of the African National Congress, surely by definition more government must be in place, yet we see evidence of poor administration every day,” Maimane said. – Sapa