THE DA has poured cold water over Eastern Cape premier's "Crack Team".
On Tuesday, 3 October, Premier Oscar Mabuyane announced the formation of a Crack Team made up of heads of departments who were previously in charge of failing departments.
The team is made up of Dr Rolene Wagner from the Department of Health, Andile Fani from the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Siphokazi Ndudane from the Department of Rural Development and Agrarian Reform, and Mzi Mafani from the Department of Transport.
The office of the premier explained that these administrators were moved to establish the team as part of building the capacity of the state.
"The Project Support Unit is made up of a high-powered team of leaders with proven capabilities and skills in public administration. It's a team that is formed in the same spirit as the Provincial Command Council that worked like a well-oiled machine in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic,” the statement read.
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According to the statement, the team is now based in the office of the premier and will be led by the director general.
“As you can see, some of the officials are heads of departments. We've entered into secondment agreements with the officials and their respective departments for a period of 12 months because the tasks we're assigning them are matters of provincial importance.
“We're making all these strategic appointments to maintain the positive momentum we are making in other areas such as investment declarations of up to R127 billion. GDP growth of 2,1 % for 2022 and the increase in the number of departments and entities that achieved clean audits from 5 in 2018/19 to 15 in the 2022/23 performance cycle,” said Mabuyane.
But the DA's shadow MEC for finance, Yusuf Cassim, criticised the move, suggesting that it reflects a government in panic mode.
"He is merely shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic as a smokescreen to hide a collapsing administration. Premier Mabuyane’s ‘crack team’ has been drawn from departments where there are already huge fault lines that they couldn't fix while at the helm. No amount of window dressing can hide the fact that this is a collapsing administration,” said Cassim.
