Limpopo PTT gets down to business

051110. Polokwane in Limpopo Province. Limpopo Premier Cassel Mathale arrives for The Limpopo Provincial Government Budget Lekgotla that took place on 04 and 05 November 2010. Picture: Dumisani Sibeko

051110. Polokwane in Limpopo Province. Limpopo Premier Cassel Mathale arrives for The Limpopo Provincial Government Budget Lekgotla that took place on 04 and 05 November 2010. Picture: Dumisani Sibeko

Published Apr 5, 2013

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 Limpopo - The ANC's provincial task team (PTT) has imposed a moratorium on filling mayoral and council vacancies in the Limpopo government, a PTT spokesman said on Friday.

“It is an ANC-led government, so municipalities, especially mayors and councillors account to the ANC and have been deployed by the ANC to carry out or implement the policies of the ANC or its election manifesto,” provincial spokesman Sipho Dikgale said.

The move was part of efforts to improve governance and root out corruption.

“Our role as the African National Congress is in an oversight role, so they account to us in terms of implementing such policies,” Dikgale said of the moratorium.

Other PTT measures were that mayors and municipalities submit a report to the PTT dating from 2011 Ä after local government elections Ä to demonstrate how they had met their goals.

“We wanted to see from those reports how the ANC can intervene or assist government,” he said.

The reports the PTT requested were not on tenders that had been awarded, as reported, but were overall reports on how municipalities were managed.

The PTT would also receive information from ANC branches at ward level on how areas were managed and would work with the ANC's national executive committee on addressing problems in the province.

The PTT's establishment was announced in a statement on March 25 after its provincial structure was dissolved.

Earlier in March, the province's provincial executive committee, chaired by premier Cassel Mathale, was dissolved after a decision taken by the ANC's national executive committee.

At the time, ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe said Limpopo's PEC was dissolved because of its “un-ANC behaviour and institutionalised factional conduct”.

Dikgale said as an ANC deployee and “loyal and disciplined comrade of the ANC”, the PTT had no doubt Mathale would help its efforts.

Democratic Alliance MPL Desiree van der Walt would “urge” the national Treasury to remind the PTT it had no mandate to pronounce on how tenders were awarded.

“While premier Mathale should be removed from office for the collapse of delivery in Limpopo... he cannot be replaced by more of the same,” she was quoted as saying. - Sapa

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