DA Limpopo rejects Premier Ramathuba’s SOPA

LEBOWAKGOMO

According to the Democratic Alliance (DA) in Limpopo, the State of the Province Address (SOPA) delivered by Limpopo Premier Phophi Ramathuba on Thursday 27 February 2025, failed to inspire and did not adequately address the grassroots challenges that most people in Limpopo are faced with.

The party said 31-years into democracy and the ANC’s premier is still using raced base examples as the bar to celebrate her incompetent government’s successes.

Lindy Wilson, DA Leader in Limpopo, said the party is deeply concerned about how the Musina-Makhado Special Economic Zone (MMSEZ) development has divided and angered our society, including the region’s indigenous communities.

“Concerns have been raised around the impact on the environment, our scarce water resources, our sensitive and renowned ecology and the interests of other economic drivers such as farming and tourism,” said Wilson.

She said the party will continue to question and hold the provincial government accountable for the ambiguous piecemeal manner, in which it has handled the environmental impact assessment process, particularly the fact that Limpopo Economic Development, Environment and Tourism (LEDET), serves as the developer, the applicant, the adjudicator and the appeal authority.

“Our commercial farming sector has long been a backbone of our economy and has evolved into a globally competitive industry. However, collapsing municipal governance, failing service delivery, deteriorating road infrastructure, porous borders, and other government failures threaten its productivity and competitiveness,” informed Wilson.

She added that they will also call upon the premier to be bold, stating that Limpopo is blessed with vast tracts of arable land owned by the state and traditional communities.

“If this land can be unlocked, we can significantly expand our agricultural sector and establish a cohort of viable emerging farmers working in collaboration with commercial farmers, as recently demonstrated by the signing of the Vhembe Agricultural Multiplier Memorandum of Understanding,” she said.

Wilson indicated that the party has noted that Premier Ramathuba saw it fit to establish a provincial Water Task Team to address water shortages and interruptions instead of acknowledging and disposing of incompetent cadre deployment in key positions, especially in district municipalities.

“The incomplete bulk water supply projects strewn across the province which will not be completed soon due to incompetent contractors, corruption and poor governance by deployed cadres exacerbate the lack of water provision to residents. It is unacceptable that more than 35.8% of Limpopo residents do not have any access to water,” Wilson said.

She said the party view uninterrupted water supply across Limpopo as considered a luxury by the ANC executive, and shows a blatant disregard for access to water as a human right enshrined in the Constitution, while residents are without water for months with some communities having never received access to water.

“However, we commend the premier for expressing concern regarding the construction mafia, but we would like to remind her of who appoints these companies holding progress to ransom,” commended Wilson.

Furthermore, Wilson said the DA is concerned that Limpopo learners continue to attend classes under trees, with some classrooms having over 100 learners and dilapidated also on the brink of collapsing with no solution in sight.

“The address continues to paper over the cracks with regard to overcrowding, shortage of classrooms, mismanaged scholar and school nutrition programmes and inappropriate sanitation in Limpopo’s education sector,” explained Wilson.

She said the province’s Road Agency Limpopo’s (RAL) consistent gross mismanagement and poor financial management continues to go unaddressed.

“The entity has failed to improve the road infrastructure and improve economic development in the province and it is why the province has an enormous backlog of 13 500km unpaved roads as opposed to only 6500km of tarred roads,” Wilson said.

In terms of health standards, Wilson stated that the province continues to be underserved, and while hospitals and clinics are under resourced and severely understaffed, the premier failed to highlight the real state of healthcare in the province.

“Hospitals in the province lack equipment, have poorly maintained infrastructure and high vacancy rates at health facilities continue to compromise the quality of healthcare in Limpopo,” she said.

She said the DA will monitor all the commitments made today by Premier Ramathuba to ensure Limpopo’s government meets all of them and starts to realise the aspirations of the people of the province.