Gauteng MEC for finance and economic development Lebogang Maile says talks of him being the de facto premier are old attempts by wedge drivers to pit him against incumbent Panyaza Lesufi.
Maile revealed that such attempts started at the provincial ANC elective conference in 2022. But when former premier David Makhura left office, said Maile, some tried to force him to contest Lesufi for the job but he rejected the lobby.
Maile was speaking to Sunday World Engage in a wide-ranging interview including his plans to turn around the province’s fortunes as the man in charge of the purse.
According to Maile, serving was not about occupying -certain positions for him but the pleasure of serving in whatever capacity with a collective.
“The reason for that [branding me as de facto premier] is because they were expecting that I must perpetuate a battle with comrade Panyaza. Remember, we contested and I lost at the ANC provincial conference, the majority of branches voted for him. He is the chair and premier and I rally behind him,” said Maile.
“So there was talk that the people who I worked with in the ANC conference were a majority in the PEC (provincial executive committee).
“So, after conference when comrade Makhura left, and the premier was to be appointed, they wanted us to go for popular vote and prevent comrade Panyaza from being premier, saying I instead must be the premier,” he went on.
“I refused. So if I believed that nonsense that I am the power behind this or that I would have agreed to that, which would have caused serious problems in the ANC,” Maile said, adding that he was working well with Lesufi.
He explained his priorities for the current term as MEC, a position in which he was appointed following the May 29 elections.
Maile said his top priority was to make the province an attractive investor destination with a target to bring R500-billion worth of investments by 2027.
In the immediate, resolving the water, energy and infrastructure challenges was paramount for those were the foundation for attracting investment.
“We had to first make sure that we meet with the important players in the economy because you cannot make an impact on the economy when you do not meet the people who run the economy, and that process is ongoing,” he said.
“We have met the governor of the SA Reserve Bank and we are happy with the good discussion. We have met -CEOs of banks and CEOs of other companies and we have interacted with our colleagues at municipalities, both from finance and economic development.”
Maile said he was hard at work with his team putting together an economic development plan for the province, which will be the guiding blueprint for the work of his department until 2029.
The MEC said he would also be going big on implementing strategies to curb corruption by, among other things, digitalising the tender systems to limit human interaction, which he believes is the main source of graft in supply processes.
Another area of concern, he said, was unnecessary waste of public funds. To end this he was going to introduce standardisation of pricing in all provincial departments wherein departments will pay a standard price for the same goods and services procured instead of the current regime where each department decides independently.
“We are going to be very strict and we are going to be monitoring every department and every agency,” he said. “In the next few months, you will see
Gauteng treasury announcing and imposing a lot of standardisation in terms of prices.”
