TIME TO ACCOUNT FOR THE DECISIONS

If Parliament is serious about finding solutions to the ongoing petitions, it should first acknowledge that these are the making of a government that has failed to make the right decisions towards service delivery and take appropriate action against those responsible for this.

The call from some members of the public for government to suspend the E1.4 billion Exim Bank loan from India for purposes of constructing a Parliament building that is a non-priority infrastructure project when measured against the urgent needs of the country at present,is a clear indication of the level of citizen fatigue at blatant disregard for what matters most for our people.

Disregarding the warning from the auditor general who reports annually on how ministries, departments and agencies continue to spend beyond budgets appropriated by Parliament on activities that have no budget provision and incur expenditure without seeking approval from relevant authorities, has exacerbated the problem. No wonder the public is now questioning how long it has to put up with forking out over E100 million to a contractor for the cancellation of projects such as the Sicunusa-Nhlangano Road. This on top of a E600 million loss with more money still to be injected to complete the road.What hits below the taxpayers belt on this project, are the findings of the auditor general to the effect that the contract was awarded without approval of the funding agencies and that the Ministry of Public Works and Transport had been flouting and contravening the loan requirements, rules, criterion contractual obligations and construction standards from the first day of the project.

projects

This is but one example of a catalogue of capital projects initiated in this country that hardly ever get completed within the initial costs, nor justify their purpose.The excess waste is money that could be used to cater for people’s needs and it must begin with proper budget allocations. Prioritising the local army and flushing it with almost double the funding to that of similar sized Lesotho, can only result in the excess waste that is playing itself out where army bosses get escorts and chauffeurs to be driven to shebeens! We have an army bloated with highly productive youth recruits that are idling, while schools and hospitals cry out for teachers and nurses who are now being told to go farming - forgetting that agriculture is allocated a budget less than our security forces.

Where do our priorities lie? The scale of socio-economic losses through poor decision making, flouting of regulations and plain negligence in the management and oversight of our resources can no longer go unpunished. Accounting for this is a good place to start for our MPs and Cabinet if they are serious about resolving the current impasse.

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