Page 106 - Provincial Treasury Estimates.pdf

Department: Office of the Premier
of Environmental Affairs and Tourism (DEDEAT) as well as the OTP will be required to ensure we gradually

improve on these targets.

On anti-corruption, the OTP has ensured that machinery agencies are at work and investigations of
reported cases are at different stages. The Special Investigating Unit has completed investigating the 748

Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) cases referred to them and 200 cases were found to be irregular
and have been referred for consequence management by respective institutions. Since the establishment
of the Specialized Litigation Unit (SLU), the department has been working in conjunction with the

Department of Health to implement the Provincial Litigation Management Strategy. To date, The SLU,
working in conjunction with Health and Provincial Treasury, have been effective in reducing the number of

cases by 43 per cent as at the end of the third quarter.

In the first three quarters of 2022/23 financial year, the department committed to conducting 3 evaluations,
focusing on the Impact of Covid-19 on the income of families; Design and implementation evaluation of

Anti-poverty initiatives; and the Programme evaluation on Provision of basic services (water, electricity
and sanitation), however, none were achieved. There were delays in the first quarter caused by the
Moratorium on Procurement as these services had to be outsourced. Subsequently, due to lack of capacity

in the implementing agency the project encountered further delays. Work has since commenced, however,
it is unlikely that all will be achieved in the 2022/23 financial year.

The department remains committed to improving connectivity in the province through broadband project

despite challenges encountered. By the end of the third quarter, 504 out of the annual target of 1 100 sites
for the current year had been connected. This number includes the connection using fibre, of the 148 sites,
which were previously connected through Long Term Evolution (LTE), a fourth generation, 4G wireless

connection technology LTE connection. Therefore, a total of 762 or 28 per cent of the 2 700 sites as per
the current contract with State Information Technology Agency (SITA) has been connected, benefiting
mainly schools, health, government and other public facilities.

With regards to the Small Town Revitalisation programme, in the 2022/23 the focus has been on
completion of the six projects that were commenced in the 2021/22 financial year. These are Aggate Road
Phase 2; EmaXesibeni Internal Street and Street Lights (two projects); Ingquza Hill R61 and Street Lights

(two projects); Ndlambe-Thornhill Water Reservoir. There are also new projects that were initiated in the
2022/23 financial year and these are at various stages of completion which include design and

procurement. Even though the programme has encountered several challenges the department has put in
place risk mitigation measure to mitigate the impact of these challenges to ensure significant progress by
the end of the financial year.

89