The Free State Department of Sports, Arts, Culture and Recreation (SACR) is as dysfunctional as Free State Municipalities. This Department has been unable to manage its affairs and is a mirror image of what people experience daily under an ANC-run municipality.
An article published recently in StepUp SA, an online investigative media company, outlines just some of the issues facing the provincial department which relates from non-payment of staff salaries for the security at the Winnie Mandela Museum, to internal squabbles between staff and the current MEC Limakatso Mahasa. There have also been complaints concerning a lack of internal promotions, lack of overtime payments particularly to security personnel who work without any protective gear or weapons, and a lack of absorption of interns who are on contract even though they have been with the department for many years.
MEC Limakatso Mahasa is rumoured to also be embroiled in a court case with supply chain head Takalani Ramabula after the MEC allegedly upon the instruction of former Premier Ace Magashule, moved him unlawfully away from supply chain management, after he started investigating contracts within the provincial department.
Most recently, the DA submitted a PAIA application to the provincial department of SACR to provide us with the attendance registers and recordings of all public participation process meetings that were held with regards to the name change of Brandfort to Winnie Mandela, to which we have received no feedback.
This provincial department has fallen apart and totally collapsed under the political leadership of the current MEC Limakatso Mahasa. This resembles the state of many municipalities in the Free State that are unable to deliver services to residents.
The ANC is unable to keep its house in order and is on its knees waiting for voters to put them out of their misery at the polls this up and coming Local Government Elections.
While the ANC brings instability and unrest to the Free State as things collapse, voters have an opportunity to bring stability and security to their municipalities by voting for the DA.