The newly appointed MEC for Transport, Community Safety, and Liaison Ms. Peggy Nkonyeni held her first management meeting with the Department of Transport today, 15 March 2021. The purpose of the meeting to formally introduce the department’s management team to MEC Nkonyeni and brief her on urgent strategic issues facing the department.
MEC Nkonyeni, who is the first female MEC to lead the department, said that at the top of her agenda was ensuring the finalisation of the department’s structure and improving the department’s audit outcomes. MEC Nkonyeni also said she wanted to urgently mediate in the current ongoing taxi feud – within the Umzinyathi and Ndwendwe Taxi Association, which has led to the loss of many innocent lives, including commuters.
“Firstly, we need to ensure that the structure is finally approved by the Department of Public Service and Administration in order to fully capacitate the department so that we are able to function at an optimal level. I would need to come closer to that process of engaging the Department of Public Service and Administration and resolve the few remaining issues in order to get our structure approved,” said MEC Nkonyeni.
Commenting on the department’s audit outcomes, MEC Nkonyeni said: “I also noted the Auditor-General’s report on the audit challenges within the department and we need to begin to look more closely as to what is causing these challenges so that we can be able to find suitable remedies.”
In the coming days, MEC Nkonyeni said she would be meeting with each unit within the department to get a more in-depth understanding of their functioning following which she would convene another management meeting which would be strategic in nature and aimed at finding solutions to some of the challenges facing the department.