Mr Speaker, Good officials who placed the interests of the province first were moved aside to be replaced by more compliant cadres. Like proverbial vampires, the members of this network have sucked the very life blood out of the province and grown fabulously wealthy at the expense of the marginalised. [Interjections.] Obviously, the truth hurts, hon Manuel. [Interjections.] As a result, service delivery in key departments such as health, education and transport has ground to a halt - and the poorest and most vulnerable have been left to suffer the consequences.
This is the real tragedy in this matter, because as the connected cadres of the crony circle get fat on the profits of their misdeeds, the poor slip further into hunger and poverty every day. As politicians and their friends quaff French champagne, the poor are forced to share drinking water with cattle; as tenderpreneurs and politicians flash around in their luxury blue- light convoys, the poor and the marginalised are pushed further and further off the road of opportunity. [Applause.]
Instead of decisive action over the past three years, this administration has sat on its hands, while at least three multimillion-rand bridges built by crony company SGL Engineering were washed away within weeks of their completion. An amount of R400 million was squandered on irregularly procured goods and services. Most schools did not receive textbooks and learning material or any of their allocated funding, bringing education to a grinding halt. The province dished out a tender of R14 million for photocopiers to an ANC benefactor and connected crony of Premier Cassel Mathale. The price was a full R10 million higher than the next tenderer.
Premier Mathale has run his province into the ground and, despite presiding over the greatest crisis of governance in South Africa, the man and his team remain in power. [Interjections.] Now the President can fiddle around the edges amending this regulation, reworking that agency, tweaking another rule, but unless we take a hard line against the politicians and officials at the top who do wrong, our nation will continue to be dragged below the surface by the weight of their corruption and greed.
But, Mr Speaker ...