Polity
Article by: Creamer Media Reporter
Published: 25 Nov 2009
Source: Independent Democrats
Title: ID: Lubbe: Farewell speech by Independent Democrats Member of the Northern Cape Provincial Legislature
Honourable Premier, Members of the Legislature, Members of the House of Traditional Leaders, distinguished guests, members of the media, ladies and gentlemen,
Honourable Speaker, the ID clearly understands its role as an opposition party in this Province is also to work jointly with this Legislature to address the problems faced by our communities.
The ID will not bring issues to this house to score political points or to oppose for the sake of just opposing as an opposition.
The ID is social democratic and issue-driven and we have a political program of our own.
We therefore criticize only when we have sound and valid grounds for doing so and we will give credit whenever it is due and not get involved in cheap politicking.
The ID will therefore continue to bring issues to the house because we have been mandated by the electorate who voted us into this Legislature to do just that.
If we do not work together by taking the province forward to improve development, service delivery and to ensure macro and socioeconomic needs, we will remain a poor province.
Certainly much has been achieved since we were elected into office for the new term.
It is our hope that 2010 will generate good revenue for the province after the agreement between the two municipalities from our neighboring province the Free State, which will host some of the Soccer World Cup events.
Honourable Speaker, only when political parties are able to keep all of their public representatives accountable, only then will we show the people of our province that as leaders we are taking the strongest possible stand against slow service delivery and corruption no matter wherever and whenever it happens and no matter who the accused is.
Honourable Speaker, in her State of Province Address the Honourable Premier told us that now is the time for governing and I quote,
"We must get down to work, we must work to succeed. As the Office of the Premier we shall review and put in place strict monitoring frameworks to ensure that the noble objectives that the people voted for are turned into real life stories. In line with the national directive, we will also make sure that our monitoring and evaluation system includes early warning systems to assist us to detect affected departments and ensure that corrective action is taken when weaknesses are identified."
End quote
Hon Speaker, our endeavour to assist, advise and monitor departments in terms of financial governance must continue.
We need to assist those departments to produce unqualified audit reports.
However, to ensure full implementation of the evaluation system we suggest that an ad-hock committee be put in place to detect these affected departments and to implement corrective action immediately.
Honourable Speaker, the ID hopes that these performance indicators will be made public every theree months so that we as a province can be kept abreast of service delivery achievements and failures.
As members of this house all of us are tasked with playing our oversight responsibility and are accountable to the whole team that is sitting here today.
Next year this Legislature must focus on assisting our municipalities with their budgeting and revenue generation.
I also would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the five municipalities in our province who were in the top ten in the country.
I am not going to refer to too many of the issues we face today because I do not want to pick up a fight with any the Honourable Members sitting opposite me on the last day of our sitting.
As we enter the festive allow me to take this opportunity on behalf of the ID to thank all individuals and parties here for their teamwork and to bestow good wishes to all of you.
It is in this spirit that I formally want to congratulate the new Spear, Honourable Van Wyk, the Chief Whip Hon Molusi and the Chair of Chairs Hon Chotelo of the ruling party.
To all parties contesting in the Hartswater by-election I wish you good luck and I will certainly congratulate the winner next year.
I also want to wish all Honourable Members peace for the New Year.
However, looking at the Auditor-General's reports and recommendations, I cannot wish all of you prosperity and wealth.
Finally, I take this opportunity to wish the Premier, all the honourable members and all the staff a happy and blessed Christmas and a very good New Year.
I thank you.