The National Council of Provinces (NCOP) delegation leader to the Eastern Cape, Hon Nkosi Mwelo Nonkonyana, has called on government officials in the Eastern Cape to be vigilant in scrutinising bid processes and avoid institutionalizing poor performance. The delegation was visiting the Eastern Cape as part of Provincial Week to follow up on recommendations made during previous Provincial Week visits to the province.
“Poor performance of contractors who provide sub-standard infrastructure should never be associated with the Eastern Cape and that they should never be used as an excuse for non-performance,” Hon Nkosi Nonkonyana said.
Hon Nkosi Nonkonyana said the practice of hijacking government funding for projects at bid adjudication is pervasive and derails service delivery. “The Provincial Week is an eye-opener and necessitates that parliamentary oversight is enhanced and frequent to municipalities. Parliamentarians are being judged for coming to communities for electioneering when the reality is that projects get funded but are held up in plans and poor performance on the part of contractors who fail to deliver the necessary infrastructure,” he said.
The Eastern Cape delegation visited multimillion rand infrastructure projects in the Chris Hani District, none of which was found to be completed, nor where any to the satisfaction of surrounding communities. The projects visited on Thursday included the Eco-Industrial Park in Komani, a waste water sewer plant and Louis Rex Primary School.
Hon Nkosi Nonkonyana it is concerning to note how many government officials blamed poor performance on contractors, even though they had been appointed on their recommendation, and yet the officials had not monitored the contractors’ performance nor supported small, medium and micro enterprises that were harmed when projects were abandoned.
“It is not enough to just fire contractors for non-performance when they had been paid. There must be a way to recover the funds if projects are not visible … We are not happy with what we found,” the delegation leader said.
“Infrastructure cannot be in planning forever. Without mitigation plans, it is not enough to blame disasters forever when in fact failure had been at conducting due diligence. That is unacceptable. Infrastructure backlog must not happen at the expense of people’s suffering,” Hon Nkosi Nonkonyana concluded.
The delegation was however satisfied with its programme and hoped this visit will enhance service delivery to poor communities. Hon Nkosi Nonkonyana noted there would be a follow-up engagement on issues that had been reported to the Provincial Legislature and the Premier’s office. Both institutions attended the report back session.
Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Republic of South Africa: The Parliament.
