Mathabatha to handover the reins to successor in 7th administration

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Limpopo Premier Stanley Mathabatha is set to hand over the reins to his successor in the seventh administration, following the May 29 general elections. Mathabatha has led the province since 2013 when Limpopo was under administration following the era of his predecessor, Cassel Mathale.

He says he has managed to improve the lives of the people in the province through sustainable and inclusive development, as well as effective governance.

Mathabatha says although he is proud of the progress made under his leadership, more could have been done to curb corruption and prevent the VBS saga.

“Let me talk about corruption, despite the fact that I would not say we failed, but I would say perhaps had we anticipated that local government is going to have the kind of problems that it had. Your VBS for example, because we could have used the professional hub that I was talking about to advise local government that you cannot invest in the mutual bank as the public finance management act doesn’t allow it.”

Some residents in Limpopo say that Mathabatha could have done more to improve the lives of people in the province.

“There are some other things that he was just promising to do. For example, there are some other roads that he was promising to build, but unfortunately, he failed. So, I can just mention the road to Ga-Selepe. He just mentioned them for several times, another one which was Makurung line, from Makurung to Ga-Shakes,” says one of the residents.

Another resident says, “In terms of his tenure as premier, I did not quite like his leadership. I reside at Ivypark and one would think that since it’s in town we wouldn’t have water provision challenges. It has gotten to a point where we have to buy bottled water to even to flush toilets.”