A North-West University (NWU) academic believes that former North West Premier Job Mokgoro’s parting shot – that the end of his term closes “a chapter of years of service delivery to the province” – is unfounded.
The former premier resigned at the end of August, a week after his party’s provincial interim structure announced his replacement.
“Reflecting on the Parliamentary Monitoring Group’s (PMG’s) reports since the former premier began his tenure in 2018, it is clear that corruption continued unabated in the province,” says Naledi Modise, lecturer in political science and international relations at the NWU.
“Key vacancies within the government administration have yet to be filled and the province continued to register a poor performance on conditional grant expenditure in departments such as education, human settlements and public works and roads,” she says.
“As a result, a large portion of the province’s budget was lost to National Treasury.”
According to Naledi, Job Mokgoro’s 2018 appointment was meant to be temporary, lasting until the 2019 elections. “The expectation was that after the elections a new premier would have been elected by the sixth administration. He was also meant to address the service delivery issues in the North West Province and stabilise the provincial government,” she says.
The role of the premier, she explains, is to provide strategic leadership and co-ordination in provincial policy formulation and review, and oversee service delivery planning and implementation in support of provincial and national priorities and plans.
In 2018 there was widespread civil unrest in the province, particularly in Mahikeng, with calls for the removal of the then premier, Supra Mahumapelo, whose administration was accused of bringing the provincial government to its knees.
Naledi says during Job Mokgoro’s tenure, the Inter-Ministerial Task Team and PMG flagged concerns around the lack of cooperation, teamwork and co-ordination among all structures and role players who were supposed to ensure effective implementation of the Section 100 intervention in the province. This included political and administrative structures that were given responsibility to ensure accountability.
“If we review Job Mokgoro’s performance through this lens, he has failed to strengthen governance and service delivery, and merely paid lip service to his role. His focus on the ANC’s factional battles and his internal political survival overshadowed his key responsibility as premier. Unfortunately, it is the people of the North West Province who continue to be under-serviced,” concludes Naledi.
Meanwhile, Motlalepula Rosho was sworn in on 26 August as acting premier until Premier-elect Bushy Maape is sworn in. As Bushy was not a member of the North West Provincial Legislature, he first had to be sworn in as member before taking up office. He joined the legislature on 1 September.
After years of turmoil in the province, the new administration has been called on to focus on improving service delivery.
