MyPE

Community Business Directory, Event Listings, News and Views from Gqeberha, Nelson Mandela Bay

EC SOPA 2025 Fails to Deliver

By

Dear Eitor

Premier Oscar Mabuyane’s State of the Province Address (SOPA) failed to provide the leadership and direction needed to fix the Eastern Cape’s economic and service delivery crisis.

If the direction is wrong, the budget in March cannot correct it. It is embarrassing when the Premier himself cannot accurately reflect the economy’s performance. The provincial economy grew a mere 0.1% in Q2 2024—far below the 2.1% he cited and nowhere near the targets needed for sustainable growth.

It is blatantly obvious that he is out of touch with the realities faced by the people of the province.

One in two people do not have jobs, yet the Premier offered no real strategy for private-sector job creation. Instead, he continues to rely on temporary government-funded jobs, which do not grow the economy.

We must cut red tape, fix infrastructure, and incentivise businesses to create sustainable employment.

Municipalities are collapsing, but SOPA ignored the full scale of the crisis. The Treasury’s support programme has failed to stabilise struggling municipalities like Enoch Mgijima, Makhanda, and Nelson Mandela Bay.

Meanwhile, district municipalities are failing as Water Authorities, leaving hundreds of thousands without water. While we welcome the 11 bulk water projects, they are not enough to prevent the unfolding water crisis.

As far as Health is concerned, the Premier’s so-called intervention has failed. The Health Department remains in financial collapse, still defaulting on 30-day payments. The department must be placed under administration. While we note R2 billion for new hospitals and R3 billion for clinics, these investments mean nothing if doctors and nurses are not paid and hospitals remain understaffed.

Premier Mabuyane also failed to acknowledge the massive R82 billion backlog in decaying school infrastructure, offering no solutions for how this crisis will be addressed. His use of David Livingstone as an example is embarrassing, as the project remains unfinished nearly a decade after it began, with substantial cost overruns.

A strong economy needs a skilled, educated workforce, and it cannot grow if workers are too sick to work. Addressing the failures in Health and Education is not optional—it is essential to the future of the Eastern Cape.

The agricultural sector was sidelined despite its potential to transform the Eastern Cape economy. We welcome the 10 new irrigation schemes, but the Premier failed to announce further investment or address port inefficiencies in Gqeberha and Coega, which are crippling agricultural exports.

The Premier’s SOPA proved that the ANC has lived long enough to become the villain. Instead of taking responsibility, he tried to spin failures as victories. Many of his so-called achievements are not provincial government successes but national government mandates from entities like SETAs, SANRAL, and Airports Company SA.
It was embarrassing. It was frustrating. And above all, it was a failure of leadership.

The people of the Eastern Cape deserve a life of hope, meaning and dignity and instead they have been given a flashy smile and embarrassing spin.

Regards

Dr Vicky Knoetze MPL
DA Leader of the Official Opposition in the Eastern Cape Legislature

The following two tabs change content below.

Port Elizabethan

This author is a 'catch-all' for occasional articles and letters written to MyPE. The Author of each article can be found in the signature at the bottom of each individual article.