South Africa, Bloemfontein: Yesterday, 22 February 2023, EXCO planning and Budgeting Lekgotla concluded its business at Bloem Spa Lodge in Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality, Bloemfontein.
This is following robust engagements on various strategic policy discussions and priority areas that would form part of the backdrop and direction of the province moving forward. Lekgotla comes to an end just a few days before the tabling of the State of the Province Address, which will be delivered on Tuesday, 28 February 2023.
The three day planning and budgeting discussions posed difficult and pertinent questions which sought to isolate challenges facing the communities to enable the province to emerge stronger, filled with the much needed hope and impetus to drive the socio-economic transformation agenda of the province.
Guided by President Cyril Ramaphosa’s forward-thinking and solution orientated State Of the Nation Address, which spoke to critical challenges confronting the nation, Lekgotla largely focused on areas flagged by the Auditor General’s Report findings against provincial departments and their entities and the day to day impact of non-delivery of basic services such water and sanitation, electricity, and the dire state of our roads etc.
Lekgotla took stock of the prevailing challenges of unemployment, particularly amongst the youth, poverty which is one of the root causes of soaring crime statistics and inequality which also undermines the social cohesion programme and contributes to institutionalised racism, particularly in the private sector. Lekgotla also pondered on the investment made to various social partners to help in the fight against Gender Based Violence and Femicide.
Lekgotla has resolved a pool of issues that affect society and how they relate to governance; amongst the most cardinal matters given attention is the acceleration of service delivery provided to our communities, consequence management relating to mismanagement and unethical behaviour within the public sphere, underspending across departments to the detriment of service delivery and forging strategic public-private partnership to mention but a few.
Lekgotla also looked into a divergent mechanism to curb and completely negate corruption within government departments and its entities.