Eastern Cape Premier, Mr Lubabalo Oscar Mabuyane has welcomed President Cyril Ramaphosa and his GNU Cabinet Ministers as they embark on a two-day Siyahlola oversight visit to the province.
Premier Mabuyane has briefed the President about the progress that the Eastern Cape government and partners have made in the past decade to improve key human development indicators. He said life expectancy has increased to 64.3 years. Matric pass rate has reached an unprecedented 84.9% with the rural districts producing better education outcomes.
He also highlighted improvements in school infrastructure delivery, adding that R7.4 billion is budgeted to build and refurbish 138 schools in the next five years. The health sector has begun transforming with a R5 billion budget allocated to build and upgrade health facilities in rural areas in the next five years. The province is implementing a cerebral palsy centres initiative to address medico-legal claims and improve maternal-child health outcomes.
A frank Premier Mabuyane acknowledged that there are challenges in the Eastern Cape. He said: "Despite our gains, unemployment rate remains stubbornly high at 36.6%, with youth unemployment at an alarming 49%.”
In response to the challenge of unemployment Premier Mabuyane counted numerous interventions which he said the government is implementing with social partners. These include:
- Expanding industrial development in the Coega and East London SEZs by securing multibillion-rand investments to create more jobs.
- Attracting more OEMs to locate in the Eastern Cape, including targeting specifically Chinese auto maker, BYD to locate in the Eastern Cape.
- Pushing for more co-investment with national government to unlock potential of irrigation schemes.
- Lobbying national government for direct international flights to the Eastern Cape to boost tourism.
- Partnering with national government to build a thriving oceans economy in the focus areas of maritime manufacturing, aquaculture, coastal tourism, and small harbour development.
- Scaling-up youth and women empowerment programmes
Premier Mabuyane called for more deliberate efforts between national, provincial and local governments to combat crime, saying crime is an anti-thesis for development.
"The safety of our people is a constitutional imperative. GBV, extortions, kidnappings of businesspeople, and the construction mafia are a real threat to development and progress in our province” said Premier Mabuyane.
He called for extraordinary, coordinated action through anti-crime intervention operations that are intelligence driven.
Premier Mabuyane informed President Ramaphosa that governance is improving in the Eastern Cape with 20 out of 39 municipalities in the unqualified audit category. "Our journey of improving governance in the local sphere is far from complete. The culture of mismanagement of projects which leads to poor service delivery and wasteful expenditure is receiving our attention.”
The Eastern Cape government has identified Buffalo City Metro, Nelson Mandela Bay Metro, Amathole, OR Tambo, Chris Hani, Makana, Enoch Mgijima, Port St Johns, Walter Sisulu, Dr Beyers Naude, Raymond Mhlaba, Kouga, KSD and Ndlambe, as municipalities that need dedicated support from the provincial and national government to address governance and service delivery related challenges.
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