WHEN the flagship development project was launched many years ago, it was heralded at the time as another proactive government initiative aimed at uplifting a struggling community.
As usual, much fanfare marked the event as government officials and local leaders presented themselves to bask in the glory of the public relations opportunity.
Once more a grateful community participated in the celebrations, their expectations raised with promises of prosperity – economic development, skills training, improved service delivery et al.
This would be achieved through the establishment of a major agriculture project, a diary farm stocked with cattle, a state-of-the-art computer centre for training purposes and access to the world of information, as well as government department offices to improve and speed up service delivery – and so on.
Tens of millions of state funds were poured into the project. All the logistics were in place and the excited community was ready to roll.
Unfortunately the enthusiasm soon made way for reality.
Last year this newspaper reported on the total collapse of the venture, with responsible officials slow to respond, investigate or take corrective measures.
Considering the massive investment of public funds, one would have expected immediate government intervention.
This was not forthcoming and the community soon found themselves in a desperate situation once more.
When the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) eventually turned up last week, they heard no feasibility study was undertaken by the KZN government before they invested and, more disturbingly, no one could say exactly how much was ploughed into the project.
Surely somebody in the finance department monitors these things?
The community itself reportedly pointed out the lack of water supply as the main threat to the project’s feasibility right from the start.
There was obviously no haste in solving this crucial problem caused by, in the words of Fikile Ndlovu of the KZN Legislature, ‘confusion and disputes about whose responsibility it was to set up the (water supply) infrastructure’.
Even as all the dairy farm livestock perished, wholesale theft of equipment halted agriculture projects and the computer centre became dysfunctional (the state department offices never got off the ground), government officials inconceivably turned a blind eye.
Disturbingly the uLwamba Project Committee’s report of mismanagement – the government apparently handed all the funds to ‘a certain individual’ to manage – was also ignored.
Who is this individual and why was regular detailed expenditure reports not submitted? In other words, where is the money?
Alarmingly, from a taxpayer’s point of view, is the realisation that the uLwamba project is but one of many similar government projects in which hundreds of millions – if not billions – are simply wasted on ill-conceived, ill-managed and corrupt initiatives in which accountability is a foreign word.
