Is jet-setting Minister Zikalala confused about which Portfolio he heads?
11 May 2023
Once again, Minister Sihle Zikalala did not appear at the Portfolio Committee Meeting for the Department of Public Works and Infrastructure (DPWI) this week – because he was in the Netherlands to propagate Infrastructure South Africa’s (ISA) efforts to get hydrogen projects off the ground. While this might be a noble effort, it demonstrates just how out of touch the Minister is with what is happening in the Portfolio Committee, and in the emerging construction and built environment arena in South Africa.
It also follows hot on the heels of his announcement, reported in a myriad of media reports, of ‘economic lifelines being thrown to small fishing harbours in the Western Cape’.
Saturday’s Weekend Argus ran a story with a misleading headline of ‘Harbour’s Thrown An Economic Lifeline’, detailing an influx of R500-million into the Hout Bay and Saldanha Bay Harbours, among the 13 small harbours which will benefit from the revamp budget following recent complaints from the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee. Until one realises that this is not a new allocation of money at all.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) can reveal that in her 2020 Budget Vote Speech, former DPWI Minister Patricia de Lille spoke about the Small Harbours Repair and Maintenance Programme which was gazetted as a Strategic Integrated Project (SIP) as part of the Infrastructure Investment Plan in May 2020.