Johannesburg - The education MEC in the North West, Viola Motsumi, has assembled the department’s senior management and different stakeholders to a two-day infrastructure lekgotla on April 18 to 19 at Kgaswane Country Lodge in Rustenburg.
This was after different stakeholders requested the department during the MEC’s meet and greet roadshow to hold an infrastructure lekgotla in order to address the school's conditions.
In her opening remarks, Motsumi made a stern call for participants not to make the sessions a talk show, but to bring about tangible deliverables to better the system for the benefit of North West posterity.
“I don't want this lekgotla to become a talk show without any tangible results. As managers, we should not spend time in our offices but be in schools monitoring curriculum delivery and school conditions.
"This lekgotla should be held annually and it is going to be a tool to monitor the progress of infrastructure delivery. I have observed that some directorates operate in silos, and we need to unite so that we can achieve more. After this lekgotla, we should go back and implement all the resolutions.
“There is no money which will be returned back to the treasury now. In each and every quarter we should spend 25% of our budget. We shouldn't wait for the end of the financial year to know how much money we have spent,” Motsumi said.
During the breakaway sessions, participants listed the following as resolutions:
- Human capacitation from the district level to reduce the backlog.
- Filling up vacant positions in the Infrastructure Unit.
- Retention of professionals by establishing infrastructure offices in the major cities- Rustenburg and Potchefstroom, consistent monitoring of projects.
- Management of implementing agents.
- Review of the Memorandum of understanding with the implementation agencies.
- Stern strategies to improve on expenditure to be identified.
Challenges raised throughout the session included but were not limited to efficiency in management, maintenance of structures, human capital, and supply chain management.
Motsumi emphasised that the resolution would guide the department throughout the 2023 financial year and further indicated that officials who were not ready to deliver services to the people of the North West should excuse themselves from work.
Current Affairs