{"id":5213,"date":"2021-02-25T23:10:40","date_gmt":"2021-02-25T23:10:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/?p=5213"},"modified":"2021-02-25T17:19:00","modified_gmt":"2021-02-25T17:19:00","slug":"zikalala-must-deliver-a-pro-poor-kzn-sopa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/zikalala-must-deliver-a-pro-poor-kzn-sopa","title":{"rendered":"Zikalala must deliver a pro-poor KZN Sopa"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press<\/a> – South-Africa<\/a>. <\/strong><\/span>Durban – As people around the KwaZulu-Natal province wait to hear what Premier Sihle Zikalala will say in his State of the Province Address (Sopa) on Friday, political analysts and civil society said they did not expect much from the speech.<\/p>\n

Desmond D\u2019Sa who was speaking on behalf of the Coalition of the Poor which is a coalition of civil society organisations, said the poor and vulnerable in KZN were rallying together now as they had realised eThekwini municipality, and the provincial government were not helping them. With Friday\u2019s State of the Province Address, he was not expecting much.<\/p>\n

D\u2019Sa said he expected announcements on big infrastructure projects and not anything that would better the lives of the poor and new solutions were needed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need a new vision. That vision has to consult the poor and vulnerable,\u201d he said. What was also needed was for there to be no more white elephant projects that lead to wastage of money, he said. The government needed to have political will and direction that would help the poor, he said.<\/p>\n

Political analyst Professor Sipho Seepe also said that he was not expecting much from the premier\u2019s address. He said the premier would most likely stick to points about Covid-19 and the vaccination roll-out programme to make the people of KZN happy that work is under control.<\/p>\n

Zikalala would also talk about agriculture as the province has a large agricultural sector, and will touch on unemployment, he said. Seepe said the premier would follow the president and limit himself to a few issues that needed to be addressed as the country had a poor economy which meant there was not enough money to tackle all the country\u2019s problems.<\/p>\n

IFP leader Velenkosini Hlabisa said they expected Zikalala to take charge and make bold announcements. Some of the issues the IFP wanted to be addressed were water shortages, housing backlog and sanitation, he said.<\/p>\n

Hlabisa said: \u201cDeadlines for the release of corruption reports to the public, such as the damaging report into alleged irregularities and corruption in the uMzimkhulu Local Municipality; a forensic investigation has been launched into how the KwaZulu-Natal government spent more than R200 million of its drought-relief budget\u201a which was meant as relief for subsistence farmers and struggling smallholder farmers\u201a as well as bigger commercial farmers; and the forensic report commissioned by the late former agriculture MEC Meshack Radebe in 2012\u201a and which cost the province R10 million\u201a was completed in February 2014\u201a but has not been released to the public.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the people of the province needed action and not empty promises and political rhetoric as the ANC-led government had over-promised much but delivered little. \u201cThis has been the norm for years, and the people of KwaZulu-Natal can see through this farce. Their plight has been demonstrated through protest action across the province, which is affecting various sectors of our economy. Most of these protests are driven by service-delivery issues, intra-party rivalry and access to lucrative tenders.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ahead of Friday\u2019s Sopa, which will be hosted as a hybrid session due to the lockdown, Premier Sihle Zikalala hosted an online pre-Sopa listening session to \u201cengage citizens, especially the youth, and get their input on critical issues\u201d.<\/p>\n

Members of the youth population in the interactive session lamented the hard effects of Covid-19, lack of employment business opportunities, access to water, drugs, crime, and several other issues in the province.<\/p>\n

Daily News<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – South-Africa. Durban – As people around the KwaZulu-Natal province wait to hear what Premier Sihle Zikalala will say in his State of the Province Address (Sopa) on Friday, political analysts and civil society said they did not expect much from the speech. Desmond D\u2019Sa who was speaking on behalf of the Coalition of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":5212,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,8,12],"tags":[274,315,275],"class_list":["post-5213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-homepage-english","category-policy","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-south-africa","tag-south-africa-2"],"yoast_head":"\nZikalala must deliver a pro-poor KZN Sopa - South Africa<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Durban - As people around the KwaZulu-Natal province wait to hear what Premier Sihle Zikalala will say in his State of t ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/zikalala-must-deliver-a-pro-poor-kzn-sopa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Zikalala must deliver a pro-poor KZN Sopa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Durban - 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