PRETORIA, Nine months after the North West was placed under administration by Cabinet, Monitoring and Evaluation Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma says steady progress is being made to bring the South African province back to stability.
In April this year, President Cyril Ramaphosa delegated an Inter-Ministerial Task Team (IMTT), headed by Dlamini-Zuma, to undertake a governance and service delivery assessment in the North West.
This was in response to widespread community uprisings and labour unrest that severely affected the delivery of services.
Schools were shut down, hospitals and clinics were brought to a standstill as communities protested and workers downed tools.
At the height of the protests, Ramaphosa visited the province to assess some of the reasons raised by community leaders for the protests.
Among the reasons cited were leadership under the now former Premier Supra Mahumapelo, governance and corruption.
Giving feedback on the progress made to date in an interview with the Government Communication and Information System (GCIS), Dlamini-Zuma said progress is being made but a lot more still needs to be done.
We have done a lot and [achieved] some success but there is still a lot to be done. Resources were not moving out to clinics. The distribution of medicines and drugs was affected because there was a problem at the depot, and that has now been resolved. We are now at 80% availability in terms of medicines, she said.
Dalmini-Zuma said the payment of service providers, which had fallen behind as a result of protests, now stands at over 80%.
We have made progress with 80% of payments of service providers, which was close to R1 billion, said the Minister.
With corruption being cited as one of the challenges in the province, Dlamini-Zuma said 46 cases have been handed over to the police for further investigation.
During the intervention, 12 municipalities that required assistance were identified.
With municipalities being the most affected by poor management, the Minister said the IMTT is at work to put mechanisms in place to ensure that governance in these municipalities is addressed.
Source: Nam News Network