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Gauteng Premier David Makhura has failed to achieve key targets concerning youth employment, township procurement and disciplining of corrupt officials.

This was disclosed in an analysis of the Premier's Office First Quarterly Report at a meeting last week Friday of the Oversight Committee on the Premier's Office and Legislature (OCPOL) in the Gauteng Legislature. The period covered is April to June this year.

According to the report, the Office did not meet the following three targets for the Tshepo One Million project for unemployed youth:

• only 840 youth out of 8000 target were reached for temporary work
• 155 against a target of 400 youth were reached for long-term contract jobs
• 68 against a set target of 100 youth were assisted to start new enterprises

Makhura has stressed the importance of boosting the township economy, but has spent only 9% of the budget in townships compared to the 24% target.

It was also disclosed that 56 officials were found guilty of doing business with government. Two officials resigned and 54 resigned their business interests.

I am concerned that so many officials were doing business with government but have faced no consequences other than resigning their business interests. There should surely be disciplinary sanctions initiated and corruption charges laid.

The Premier's Office also failed to resolve 273 corruption cases out of 2074 reported cases.

Another concern is that the Office only resolved 1447 (72%) of complaints reported to the Hotline. This was attributed to a breakdown of the Case Management System which is crucial to the operation of the 476 War Rooms that are supposed to respond effectively to service delivery complaints.

Overall, the Office achieved 40 (71%) out of 56 targets, but its failure in key areas shows that Premier Makhura needs to take drastic remedial action to achieve his ambitious goals.

Issued by DA