Lesetja Malope 
The African National Congress in the province has come out guns blazing in defence of the provincial government and called to order two ministers currently involved in the Cabinet-commissioned Section 100 intervention of five departments.
The party’s Provincial Secretary, Mr Soviet Lekganyane said during a media briefing held at its provincial headquarters on Friday that ANC deployees running the show at both provincial and level are partly to blame for not communicating consistently with their constituencie.  He requested Finance Minister, Mr Pravin Gordhan to apologise to residents of the province and demanded that the investigations period be dated back from1999.
Lekganyane, accompanied by his deputy, Ms Florence Dzhombere and Provincial Treasurer, Ms Pinkie Kekana, said the party still had confidence in Premier Cassel Mathale and his Executive Council. “We wish to restate with unparalleled confidence that we firmly believe in the capacity of the provincial government to lead the people of this province with diligence. We believe in the ability of every deployee to discharge their responsibilities in their various fields of deployment with honour. As the leadership of this province we will rise, protect and defend the ANC, its government and its image. There must never be anybody from any sector in society who makes insinuations about the ineptitude of leadership to lead this province,” Lekganyane said, adding that anyone who makes such insinuations would be guilty of eroding public confidence in the ANC-led government.
Addressing the media a day after the ministerial intervention team dismissed allegation that patients were left to starve in hospitals because service providers were not paid and released damning findings on state finances, Lekganyane said the party was thoroughly briefed of the financial developments in provincial government.
“The leadership of the ANC in the province has been adequately briefed about the overdraft which has been incurred in the past. As at the inception of the new political leadership in 2009 the overdraft facility was sitting at R1.2 billion. Therefore this shows that this matter has historical basis as opposed to the misleading impression created that the issue only started in 2009.
“In 2010 and 2011 the overdraft rose to R1.7 billion and reduced by R200 million in 2011. The overdraft will reduce by R700 million in 2012 and will be further worked out completely in 2013,” he added.
Gordhan had said the province had accumulated unauthorised expenditure of R1, 5 billion during the same period and the figure rose up to R2, 7 billion last year.
Lekganyane also reiterated Provincial Treasury’s earlier statement that the overdraft was partly due to the implementation of the wage bill.
“It must also be placed on record that at the time of the intervention the provincial government was not at a point of collapse. There is no proof of that at the time of the National government intervention in November/December 2011 the provincial government had exhausted the entire R40 billion allocated to it as an annual appropriation. Had that situation prevailed, the entire provincial government was supposed to be placed under administration, not only five departments. Had this happened, it would also have suggested gross levels of incompetence in the National Treasury that it would have transferred more money to the provincial government than was necessary” Lekganyane said.
Seemingly taking a swipe at National Government, Lekganyane said Gordhan should explain to the nation what happened to the R21 million that the Auditor General reportedly found missing due to irregularity.
“Unauthorised expenditure does not always amount to corruption,” he added.
He said Provincial Government was not to blame for the lack of payments to service providers last month which had devastating results for the health and education sectors as the province was ordered to stop all payments. “The correspondence gave a stern warning that any government employee who disobeyed the instruction would be acting in a manner constituting gross insubordination and disobedience. We expect the ministry, once again, to write to the Provincial Government, to instruct them to uplift this moratorium on payment of service providers. Secondly, also to apologise to the people of this province for the inconvenience caused,” he said.
The Lekganyane, who is outgoing MEC of Cooperative Governance, Human Settlements and Traditional Affairs, also said Gordhan was out of order to comment on the setting up of World Cup-style courts instead of the Justice Ministry doing so while Health Minister, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi was also not spared for reported comments he made in the media implying that the Health Department was not really under administration.  “His comments are misleading and very unfortunate,” he said.
Lekganyane also took a swipe at the former Education MEC for suggesting that he is the one who actually recruited the current Health Head of Department, Ms Daisy Mafubelu.
He said Motsoaledi’s comments about corruption in the province since 2009 should be encouraged but also extended to since 1999 and the scope expanded to office accommodation for state departments, incomplete and abandoned projects of the past such as in housing, disposal of government-owned properties, awarding of mineral rights, aborted parliamentary building and the controversial multimillion Rand Health Information System which is still being paid for by government despite not operating.
Motsoaledi was an MEC in the province during the period Lekganyane said should be included in the investigation.
Lekganyane further said members of the party in the province are effectively gagged from commenting about the member besides the leadership.