It is hard not to see Premier Sibusiso Ndebele's recent "unannounced" visits to a number of government departments as anything but blatant electioneering. According to one media report, the Premier intervened last Wednesday to assist several people inconvenienced by bungles and delays at the Home Affairs Department office in Umgeni Road, Durban. The Premier's intention, we were told, was to see first-hand the service offered by government departments. 

Now this is all rather transparent. People have been inconvenienced by bungles and delays at most government departments long before the Premier decided to "intervene" last Wednesday. It is unsurprising that he did so a few months before the 2009 general election and with a few journalists in tow. 

If this government is indeed serious about assessing public servants' performance, it should employ a more systematic strategy to detect underperformance and corruption by public servants than allow the Premier to score brownie points with the media on a well-publicised photo opportunity, such as the said visit to the Home Affairs office in Umgeni Road. 

Predictably, the Premier did not leave it at "unannounced" visits to government departments. Incidentally, he recently launched a fresh campaign to fight and root out graft, having flooded the province with billboards exhorting citizens to report government corruption. 

This campaign is a rather serious matter in the light of the known instances of corruption which the Premier has been actively shielding in the KwaZulu Natal Department of Agriculture and elsewhere. The ANC, to be sure, has resisted all attempts to bring to light the full extent of the deluge in that department caused by the ruling party's appointee and former Head of Department Dr Jabulani Mjwara.     

If the Premier is genuinely committed to rooting out corruption, let him begin his fight by allowing at last the publication of a number of audit reports into corruption across several government departments under his tutelage.

Dr Lionel Mtshali
Leader of the Official Opposition 

Contact: Dr Lionel Mtshali, 083 256 4902