The opposition party in the Mpumalanga province says all it saw was an ANC campaign that was made to appear like a Legislative sitting.
The Democratic Alliance in the Mpumalanga province has called for the scrapping of the Taking Legislature to the People, saying the reason they decided to not be part of last week Friday’s closing session was because the sitting had been reduced to an ANC roadshow.
The Mpumalanga legislature has been with the people of Mhluzi the whole of last week (13 to 17 Mar) at the Themba Senamela stadium, Middelburg and Premier David Mabuza addressed the sitting on its last day on Friday, responding to the issues raised by the community members.
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DA leader James Masango said they stand opposed to ANC’s roadshow during Taking Legislature to the People.
“While community members are invited to attend and air their concerns about issues affecting them, no resolutions are taken at TLP to ensure that there’s a follow-up on issues brought forward. What is worse is that this time, Legislature Speaker, Thandi Shongwe, removed the questions to the MEC’s item from the agenda, and this squashes any chance of the House holding the MEC’s to account,” he said.
He said an amount of over R30 million has been used in the past few years taking the legislature to various municipalities but the programme always gets “reduced to a week-long ANC roadshow”.
“To date, Nkomazi and Bushbuckridge are still without access to water, in Lekwa, housing and sewage are still a problem, eMalahleni is still facing service delivery problems and now Steve Tshwete will remain unchanged after TLP leaves the area.
“The DA calls for the TLP programme to be scrapped in its entirety because as it
stands, it is failing on its constitutional mandate of law-making, oversight of the executive, and facilitation of public involvement and participation.
“The programme must be replaced with a more intensified oversight programme that puts people first to ensure the improvement of service delivery,” Masango said.
(edited by ZK)
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