‘Mr All Talk With No Action’ : Mathabatha slated for R1.6bn unspent by Limpopo departments

The failure of Limpopo provincial departments to spend their allocated budgets as revealed by Auditor-General Tsakani Maluleke has raised more dust for Premier Stan Mathabatha and his Cabinet.

This has led to some opposition parties branding him a “Mr All Talk With No Action”.

According to Maluleke, the provincial departments failed to spend over R1.6 billion in 2021-22 financial year. The unspent budgets were sent back to National Treasury to use elsewhere.

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• Education department (returned R523.3 million);
• Health (R570.5 million);
• Social development (R72.4 million);
• Premier’s office (R16 million);
• Legislature (R45.1 million);
• Agriculture (R98.7 million);
• Treasury (R14 million);
• Public works, roads and infrastructure (R226.1 million);
• Economic development, environment and tourism (R8.4 million);
• Transport and community safety (R40.7 million);
• Sports, arts and culture (R53.9 million); and
• Cooperative governance, human settlements and traditional affairs (R474.1 million);

This has left more residents in the province baffled and with more questions than answers.

“From where I stand, premier Mathabatha has dismally failed the people of Limpopo,” Seun Mogotji of the Bolsheviks Party of South Africa told The Citizen on Wednesday.

“Now, we can’t point out even one thing constructive that he has done for the 5.8m Limpopo population, except for the lousy ribbon-cutting moment of the Talana tin houses in Tzaneen.

“The tin houses, which cost the province R460 000 each, is the only legacy Mathabatha will leave after three consecutive terms of leadership. What a waste of time.”

Kagiso Sekokotla of Lephepane near Lenyenye, Tzaneen, said Mathabatha is just a disappointment.

“How can so many millions be returned to Treasury when poverty continues to ravage our people? When job scavengers always line up our streets job-hunting? When school pupils still attend lessons under trees and when our provincial and street roads resemble the aftermath of a war zone?”

An 18-year old orphan in Relela village shares a dilapidated mud room with four siblings and their grandmother.

The room has developed huge cracks and it could crumble. Her late mother applied for an RDP house in 2018 but only a slab was built.

During the rainy season, they are bound to sleep while standing or seek refuge from neighbours.

“It is strange that cooperative governance returned nearly R500 million while it failed to complete our RDP.

“I challenge MEC [Basikopo] Makamu and the department to come and witness the unbearable conditions in which I sleep with my family,” she said, with tears sliding down her face.

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