Housing MEC, honourable P Vilakazi
15 May 2006
Introduction
Madam Speaker, as the morning sun of the year 2006/07 sparkled platinum
across the ripples of the gentle North West frontier, with disgrace and
dishonour but unashamed we stretched our wings again to rise and hold a painful
but humble beginning! Ours was a pain resulting from an unsatisfactory
performance of both the Department and municipalities, particularly in spending
funds earmarked for improving the lives of our people. We were utterly
unimpressed with under-expenditure in both the municipal infrastructure grant
and the housing delivery programme. We didnât bother to learn more than the
simplest facts about our worst performance!
We could practise no more!
We could experiment no more!
We had to get the job done!
In response to this dismal performance by our Department, we presented to
your august house, a plan to turn around. Weâve kept at our job fiercely day
after day from before sunrise till past midnight. We were ready to begin the
most difficult, the most powerful and the most fun of all getting the job
done!
Together with our partners in the construction industry and municipalities
of our democratic system, we learned at a tremendous rate and quickly acquired
ordinary experience!
But Madam Speaker, aware of the glaring needs of the struggling masses of
our people, the homeless people of Madibeng, the dehumanising bucket system of
Matlosana, the disaster riddled Taung villages and last but not least, a
municipality at war with itself, Mamusa, we still trembled slightly with
delight as we gathered delivery momentum but proud that our fear of repeating
failure was under control and without ceremony we plunged into our turnaround.
We lifted ourselves out of the moment of disgrace and dishonour.
As the days went and past, year 2005/06 gathered moss. We found ourselves
brick by brick creating human settlements for a better life, we found ourselves
rolling out municipal infrastructure replacing buckets with descent sanitation,
we found ourselves uprooting bad municipal roads and putting better ones, we
found ourselves providing water to households in which daughters endured the
task of carrying water long distances afar from home, we found ourselves
installing electricity to households where once before informal shacks burned
its child due to a candle-induced inferno.
We could practise no more!
We could experiment no more!
We had to get the job done!
We derived our unbreakable inspiration and confidence from the humblest
people of our motherland, the giants of our struggle who have known the
freezing cold of defeat, the burning heat of suffering and the wisdom of
failure but amazingly found their way and bounced back. It is in this context
that the years ahead hum and glow with hope. I hope that today is better than
yesterday and tomorrow will be better than today!
Local Government
Local Government review and strategic priorities: The first term of
democratic local government (2001 to 2006) has been one of the most complex
projects of state transformation since 1994. Whilst the tasks of local
government transformation have proven to be more complex and protracted than
was initially anticipated, it has presented South Africa with a democratic
local government system geared towards service delivery.
Furthermore, the introduction of Project Consolidate during 2005/06 has
sharpened our understanding of the problems and challenges in the local
government sphere and has led us to the conclusion that we need to mainstream
hands-on support to local government in general over the next five years.
The main lessons arising from the first term of local government are rather
instructing and in order for us to achieve a fully viable and consolidated
local government system in the second term, there are three strategic
priorities to focus upon:
* mainstreaming hands-on support to the Department of Local Government to
improve municipal governance, performance and accountability
* addressing the structure and governance arrangements of the State in order
to strengthen, support and monitor local government
* refining and strengthening the policy, regulatory and fiscal environment
for local government and giving greater attention to the enforcement
measures.
We can practise no more!
We can experiment no more!
We have to get the job done!
Madam Speaker, we have just emerged from very successful local government
elections that have undoubtedly reinvented the confidence that our people have
on this sphere of government in general and our new system in particular. We
have seen the voter turnout in our province improving by four percent in these
elections, an indication that people have confidence in the local government
sphere.
It is also particularly important to take note of the fact that these
elections have changed the complexion of our municipalities in the province.
Apart from introducing to a large extent a new breed of councillors in our
municipalities, we have seen an increase of female mayors in the province to 48
percent while the number of female councillors in general has increased to 37
percent in the province.
As you are already aware we have also done away with the cross boundary
municipalities, with the Kgalagadi District Municipality being entirely
incorporated into the Northern Cape while several townships and villages around
Tshwane have been incorporated into Gauteng with the Merafong Local
Municipality coming to the North West. Allow me to welcome the Executive Mayor
of Merafong and his delegation who are with us today.
In general the local government elections have once again afforded our
people an opportunity to exercise their right as they demonstrated the
confidence they have in our government and we dare not fail them! We have
successfully moved with our people to a new âage of hopeâ and we cannot afford
to disappoint them on their newly found confidence in our democracy and our
local government system, in particular.
General state of service delivery: In October last year, we held a Local
Government Service Delivery Audit Summit at which we assessed municipal service
delivery in areas such as water, sanitation, housing and other infrastructure.
The report revealed that our municipalities have made huge progress in the
provision of services to communities and laying a firm delivery foundation for
the newly elected councils. We must therefore applaud the out gone councils for
a remarkable performance, to mention but a few delivery points:
* All our 21 local municipalities currently provide free basic water and for
the past five years, they have managed to extend access to running water to
over a million people in the province. What remains as a challenge to some
municipalities is to ensure that the infrastructure is improved to allow for
all those who qualify for free basic water are reached.
* Our municipalities have also managed to deliver sanitation to over half a
million people in the past five years. In other words, we have been providing
decent sanitation to at least 100 000 people every year since 2000.
* According to Statistics South Africa, 69.24 percent of households in the
province have access to electricity while formal settlements have increased
dramatically to 68 percent of the total housing in the province.
I therefore want to take this opportunity to salute the outgoing councils
for their selfless contribution to our new system of local government and for
the role they have played in bringing development to their communities. The new
councils should actually honour these achievements by continuing the good work
that has been started by their predecessors and consolidating service
delivery.
Community participation and communication: Our system of government is
premised on active participation by the citizenry in matters affecting their
lives. During the past five years we have learned that community participation
and communication are some of the key areas that we must continue to put
emphasis on, if we are to achieve optimal stability in our municipalities. The
past year has seen a number of protests which we later discovered were prompted
by insufficient communication and the lack of community participation in
municipal governance. We also found out that they were precipitated by certain
people taking advantage of the then forthcoming local government elections by
trying to hold government ransom on their demands.
These protest marches in our province occurred mainly in the Tshwane
townships which were part of the North West Ga-Rankuwa, Mabopane, Temba and
Winterveldt, where residents were demanding the transfer of the houses
belonging to the North West housing corporation for their ownership. There were
also protests in Mafikeng, Naledi, Mamusa and Tswaing local municipalities
where community members were demanding âimprovementâ in service delivery.
You are also aware of the violent protests in Khutsong against the decision
to incorporate the municipality into our province.
In our quest to innovate community participation and communication by the
general public in crafting our policy statement (budget speech 2006/07), for
the first time in the history of local government in this province, we have
involved the municipalities and the general public in putting together this
policy speech and I hope we have managed to ensure that most of the views
expressed by people, are represented in this regard.
One of the tips forwarded to âtips for Vilakaziâ was from John Mahole of
Jouberton in Matlosana, who suggested that ward councillors must have izimbizo
(in their wards) once in three months (because they) are the main government
communication members who can improve both the situation on the ground as well
as the life in their communities. The most important aspect of this tip is that
it proposes some innovation to our public participation and communication
programmes.
In a research conducted by our Communications Directorate, we have also
discovered a number of issues that will need urgent attention during this term
of government in order to make sure that we do not experience the community
protests that engulfed out municipalities in the run up to the local government
elections. The research outcome shows that only 38 percent of our local
municipalities had communication personnel during the height of these
protests.
Although this figure has risen to 57 percent recently after some
intervention from my Department it remains a challenge because it means 43
percent of our local municipalities still cannot communicate with their
communities at all. I want to appeal to all municipalities to ensure that they
get communication personnel before the end of their 2006/07 financial year in
order to start dealing with the problem of the communication gap between our
municipalities and the people.
Community development workers: From this financial year, the Department will
begin to give support to municipalities and communities through the Community
Development Workers (CDW) programme. In response to this Presidential priority
programme, the Premier has already deployed 300 CDWs to all the municipalities
last month. We are actually completing that process through a graduation
ceremony for these CDW tonight at the Mmabatho Convention Centre.
The CDWs are going to enhance service delivery on a wide range of government
services. These are the people who will compile community profiles that are
inclusive of a number of households in each ward, the number of people in the
composition of their age, gender, education and skills levels.
They will do audits that will inform us of insufficient service delivery at
ward level. This will, in turn, ensure that municipalities, government
departments and other government agents provide services in accordance with the
priority needs of people at local level.
The CDWs will ensure that people qualifying for social grants in their wards
are able to access these grants. They will be expected to work hand in hand
with other community-based workers like health workers, agricultural extension
officers and so on. These are the people who are going to mobilise communities
and ensure that they practice their right to participatory democracy through
their active involvement in processes like the Integrated Development Plan
(IDP) hearings. We hope to see a return on our investment as we start to see an
improved relationship between the communities and government facilitated and
managed by the CDWs strengthening the hand of the ward councillor in the
main.
Ward committees: We are also making inroads towards establishing functional
ward committees in the province and this process will be continued during this
financial year. In the previous term, all municipalities except four in the
province had functional ward committees. The four municipalities are
Ventersdorp, Kgetlengrivier, Molopo and Matlosana. Among the reasons stated by
Ventersdorp, Kgetlengrivier and Molopo are that they have wards which are
sparsely populated; posing challenges such as accessibility to the farming
communities and arranging a properly constituted meeting where all affected
parties would attend and participate.
The Department has developed a reporting system that will enable us to
conduct a six-monthly assessment of the state of ward committees to be
submitted by municipalities. However, not all municipalities submit their
six-monthly returns regularly as required and we will have to intensify our
monitoring during this financial year. Some of the factors identified as
contributing to the non-functionality of some ward committees include lack of
sufficient support by some municipalities and ward councillors, insufficient
budget provisions, failure to designate an official with administrative
responsibility for ward committees and lack of monitoring mechanisms in place
to ensure effectiveness.
While the establishment of ward committees is very important as it is also a
legislative requirement, the functionality of ward committees becomes more
important as it ensures the realisation of effective community participation in
matters of local government, which is a constitutional obligation. Based on the
Departmentâs own assessment as indicated above, approximately 70 percent of
ward committees within the province in the previous term were functional even
though we feel more will be done to achieve a better percentage of
functionality over the coming year.
It is for this reason that we have developed a number of draft guidelines,
strategies and policy documents that were forwarded to municipalities for
adoption and implementation. These include draft by-laws for ward committees,
ward committee annual operational plans, benchmarks for community involvement
on municipal service delivery matters and a municipal charter embracing various
policy frameworks.
We have already conscientised municipalities about the establishment of new
ward committees after the 1 March local government elections. We have also set
ourselves a target of having all the ward committees established by end of
June
2006. More emphasis is to be put on the proper constitution of ward committees
as provided for by legislation, requiring representation based on sectoral and
geographic spread and not on a party political basis. This is well espoused in
the Ward Committee Handbook, recently published and launched by the Minister of
Provincial and Local Government, Mr Sydney Mufamadi. We will capacitate the
offices of Municipal Speakers over the next three months to effectively manage
and administer ward committees.
We want to ensure that come the next financial year, functionality and
effectiveness of ward committees in our province have reached at least the 80
percent mark. Let me therefore take this opportunity to applaud Bojanala
Platinum and central districts for the innovative measures they have explored
to assist local municipalities towards the development of ward committees in
their respective areas. I want to encourage the Bophirima and southern
districts to follow suit.
Capacity building: Lack of capacity by both individuals and organisations in
government and the historically disadvantaged segments of the private sector is
one of the major challenges facing our Department and all municipalities in our
quest for effective service delivery. This is the reason why our
capacity-building efforts and initiatives have focused on organisational
development of municipalities on the one hand and skills development of
officials and councillors on the other.
Training of municipal councillors and officials is the key to effective
service delivery. With the assistance of the Municipal Leadership Training
Academy (MULTA), we have begun to systematically fight this scourge of
incapacity in our municipalities. During the past year we have managed to train
710 councillors and 363 officials, being males and 347 females in a variety of
disciplines. These include scarce skills such as project management, local
economic development, financial management, developmental local government
administration, housing development management, preferential procurement and
information technology related courses. I have no doubt that these skills
development programmes will go a long way in developing vibrant, responsive and
sustainable municipalities in our province.
Our capacity-building programmes are also being extended to other areas of
our sector in order to create a sustainable developmental environment for the
sector as a whole. We have designed a skills development programme for emerging
contactors which is in full swing. In our quest to help municipalities build
quality housing products, we have rolled out the biggest skills development
project to benefit emerging building contractors in the province. Jointly with
the Department of Labour, we are currently implementing a project to the value
of R23 million which will finally deliver more than 8500 qualifications for
both emerging contractors and their artisans.
We have contractors who are currently undergoing training in all our 21
local municipalities in support of 63 housing projects.
Contractors are being trained in project management, financial management,
tendering and estimating, business plan writing and contract management while
the artisans are being trained in trades such as bricklaying, electrical
engineering, plumbing and carpentry. More than 1 000 training qualifications
have been completed so far with the balance due for completion by October this
year.
The housing consumer education is also at the stage of implementation in our
province after it has been piloted in four other provinces on trial basis. In
this regard, we are working closely with the Department of Housing, which has
gone out to tender for the appointment of the âtrain the trainerâ service
provider. The provider will soon be appointed to assist in the roll out of this
programme. I am sure, Madam Speaker, which all members of this House will agree
with me that an informed housing consumer is an empowered consumer who knows
his/her rights and will therefore help us in monitoring the qualitative
implementation of housing projects.
Madam Speaker, institutions are key drivers of government policy and we
therefore believe their development and sustainability are of paramount
importance. As part of municipal institutional development support, we have
conducted capacity audits in all municipalities in relation to the
transformation imperatives such as compliance with the Employment Equity Act,
Workplace Skills Plans and affirmative action policies. We have completed the
development of 38 generic municipal policies and by-laws for customisation and
adoption by municipalities. Guidelines have also been developed on the
re-establishment of non-functional council committees.
A number of senior managers in the Department have also been trained through
Project Khaedu and these officials are equipped with the knowledge and skills
to utilise in turning around struggling municipalities. These officials will
soon spend the whole week as a group in each selected priority municipality
such as Kgetlengrivier and Ratlou, lending hand on support to turn around these
municipalities.
Integrated development planning: Madam Speaker, we are continuing to monitor
the Integrated Development Programmes (IDP) in all our municipalities. All
municipalities except the Central District have submitted IDPs for review in
the last financial year. I must say, honourable members, the quality of
reviewed IDPs has improved tremendously and we are proud to mention that no
consultants have been involved in the review and drafting of these IDPs. We
must acknowledge, though, that community participation in the IDP process is
still weak but we hope this will be improved by the new councils.
The most important development is that we are beginning to see improved
participation of provincial and national departments in municipal planning
processes, through their respective regional or district offices. In this
regard, I want to applaud particularly the provincial offices of the
departments of land affairs, water affairs and forestry, the office of the
Premier, the provincial departments of health, agriculture, conservation and
environment, finance, transport, roads and community safety and public works.
We are still experiencing challenges in getting participation from departments
of education, social services and arts, culture and sports but we hope to
involve them starting from this financial year.
Capacity building for municipalities on integrated development planning in
the form of workshops has been provided. Hands-on support has been provided to
some municipalities particularly on ensuring alignment between municipal
development strategies, provincial growth and development strategy and national
spatial development perspective and the drafting of the IDPs.
The IDP hearings held last year highlighted critical areas on
intergovernmental planning and effective municipal management such as a shared
paradigm for sustainable development in our province in government's
connectivity with communities, impact of intergovernmental investment in
localities, provincial developmental and strategic roles and improving the
credibility of IDPs.
Project Consolidate: Honourable members, last year saw the beginning of the
implementation of Project Consolidate in 17 of our local municipalities.
Through this programme we have seen the deployment of experts in some local
municipalities to assist with project implementation and administrative
support. These experts are the Johannesburg City Manager, Pascal Moloi for
Rustenburg, the Institute for Local Government Management Executive, Thomas
Mkaza for Mafikeng and Tshepo Nathan for Moretele.
A number of projects have also been completed around the province through
Project Consolidate. These include the bucket toilet eradication at Matlosana
worth R20 million from the provincial allocation and provision of ventilated
improved pit latrines in Greater Taung, Kagisano and Ratlou worth R10 million
as well as water reticulation in Moretele to the tune of R11,2 million. This
year the Department will be implementing a more focused and targeted project
consolidate action plan, which will have more visible impact to all the 17
municipalities.
We are engaging the private sector and parastatals as well as all three
spheres of government in our quest to support municipalities to deliver on
their constitutional mandate. The planned programmes for project consolidate
will include a municipal anti-corruption programme, capacity building on
financial management, eradication of the bucket system and improvement of rural
sanitation, capacity building on infrastructure delivery to ensure quality
services and improvement of the municipal billing systems.
Monitoring and interventions: Honourable members will remember that last
year, I announced the establishment of the Monitoring and Intervention Unit
(MIU), to respond to municipalitiesâ challenges in a highly proficient and
targeted manner that will ensure sustained municipal support. The unit has
since been renamed the Rapid Response Unit (RRU). We are currently even
capacitating it with experts in the financial, legal and municipal systems
fields and will be responsible for co-ordinating support both from internal and
external sources for targeted support in specific areas.
Integrated Municipal Management Information System (IMMIS): The Department
has finalised an electronic reporting system framework. The challenge is now to
streamline municipal information systems in order to achieve an efficient,
effective and reliable monitoring system with early warning capacity for
proactive interventions. To date 19 of our municipalities have subscribed to
the LG Net and have access to this Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA)
portal which links all municipalities in the country and provides collaboration
on a single network across the various municipalities. This will help to have
remote access with the municipalities. The extractions of the financial data
are at an advanced stage and within the next three months, financial data will
be extracted electronically from municipalities to feed the IMMIS system.
Provincial performance standards have been set for financial monitoring.
These standards serve as an early warning mechanism to alert the Department on
any form of financial underperformance by municipalities.
Performance Management Systems (PMS): The Department has also resolved to
strengthen and deepen the performance management system practice in
municipalities. To this effect we have just completed a province wide capacity
audit of municipalities on PMS. The next phase that kicks off with the new
financial year is implementing turn around strategies developed from our
capacity audit. We will also be identifying a few municipalities for best
practices. This is part of our project consolidate interventions to improve the
performance of municipalities.
20 of our local municipalities have submitted the 2003/04 annual performance
reports as prescribed by section 46 of the Municipal Systems Act 32, of 2000,
and they are in the process to submit the annual performance reports for the
2004/05 financial years.
Municipal finance: The Department continues to monitor municipal finance
performance. In the 2005/2006 financial year our focus was on assisting
municipalities in the implementation of the Municipal Finance Management Act
(MFMA). Together with the MFMA unit in the Provincial Treasury, we are
confident that all municipalities have internalised the provisions of the Act.
There are, however, isolated cases where municipalities continue to operate on
old practices and for this we have developed special programmes to assist such
municipalities. Our focus in the new financial year will be on strengthening
municipalities that are stable and implement special programmes to those that
still show some weaknesses.
19 of the 25 municipalities submitted the annual financial statements by 31
August 2005 as prescribed by the MFMA. The six outstanding municipalities only
managed to submit theirs by the end of February 2006. In our quest to improve
this situation, we have conducted workshops last December in all the four
district municipalities aimed at assisting municipalities to prepare the
2006/07 budgets. We also conducted a province wide Property Rates Act workshop
in partnership with the Department of Local Government (DPLG) in November. A
series of follow up workshops have also been conducted by the Department for
Agri North West members.
A provincial action plan for the Implementation of the Property Rates Act is
in place and has been submitted to DPLG. The set timeframes for the
implementation of the Act is from July 2007 until July 2009. Technicians have
been deployed to Ventersdorp, Mafikeng, Ratlou, Ditsobotla and Mamusa. A
financial expert has been deployed to Tswaing Municipality by the Department in
partnership with the Central District Municipality for the period October 2005
to August 2006. The development and implementation of debt collection/credit
control measures have also been done in Rustenburg, Mafikeng, Tswaing,
Lekwa-Teemane, Maquassi Hills, Kgetleng and Ramotshere Moiloa.
Rustenburg Local Municipalities (LM), Mafikeng LM and Matlosana LM are
provincial pilot sites for the development and implementation of debt
collection/credit control measures which have done considerably well.
Rustenburg registered the highest debt collection rate over a period of 18
months netting R74 million on the above and all 60 day-accounts. However,
lessons learnt in these pilots reveal shortcomings in a variety of essential
aspects which will bring the other sites up to speed with best practice. We can
only improve on our sobering experience and consolidate debt collection/credit
control measures to more municipalities. Over the next three months we will
complete a full appraisal and profiling of the pilot sites in order to guide
the rest of municipalities.
An audit on financial management capacity inclusive of a turn around
strategy has been done by the Department through Gobodo in Kgetleng,
Ventersdorp, Naledi, Mamusa and Maquassi Hills. We will during this financial
year assist municipalities to deal with the high vacancy rate in critical
positions, especially in their finance departments.
Municipal Infrastructure Grant (MIG): Our municipalities have spent R409,74
million of the R422,254 million MIG funds allocated for the past year on 98
projects. These projects involve water reticulation, sanitation, roads, storm
water, solid waste, community lighting and community facilities. This means our
expenditure is at 97 percent and is a massive 46 percent improvement from the
2004/05 expenditure.
68 or almost 70 percent of these projects are in rural areas. The MIG
programme benefited about three million people residing in these municipalities
and created over a million labour hours. A majority of these people also
acquired the necessary skills that will help them generate income on their own
in the future.
A further R525,57 million has been allocated for MIG in this financial year
and we hope to improve even more infrastructure and create more job
opportunities through this programme. Each municipality has been allocated
between R2,57 million and R69,23 million from this fund, depending on their
needs. A further R165,12 million has been set aside for improvement of rural
roads and water supply.
Sanitation: Last year the Department received an allocation of R30 million
for the bucket replacement programme and through project consolidate, managed
to eradicate 1688 bucket toilets in Matlosana and provided ventilated improved
pit latrines in Ratlou, Kagisano and Greater Taung to the tune of R10 million.
This year we have set aside R44,48 million through MIG for sanitation,
particularly for phasing out of the bucket toilets. The provincial government
has also received a further allocation of R30 million for the 2006/7 financial
year to implement the bucket eradication programme. The municipalities targeted
for this programme are Tswaing, Ditsobotla, Lekwa-Teemane, Mamusa and Maquassi
hills.
Further thereto, the DBSA has granted a loan amounting to R100 million to
the municipalities to eradicate the bucket system in order to meet the
Presidentâs target of March 2007, bringing the total funding for sanitation to
R174,48. This figure excludes the allocation in part of the housing delivery
programme. The total funding for sanitation has therefore risen by 436,2
percent compared to last year, which responds to âTips for Vilakaziâ we got
from Patrick Mokgothu of Jouberton in Matlosana, who suggested that there
should be an increase in sanitation funds to help eradicate bucket toilets in
the province.
This means that by the end of this financial year, there will be no more
bucket toilets in Lekwa-Teemane, Ditsobotla and Tswaing municipalities. Our
challenge is in Matlosana because of its huge sanitation backlog, but we are
continuing engagements with relevant departments to resolve the matter and we
are fairly confident that we would not fall outside the Marching Order.
Madam Speaker, we still experience slow spending by some municipalities due
to late registrations of projects delay in appointing service providers,
lengthy tender procedures and capacity problems. I have, however, instructed
all municipalities to ensure that they have completed the planning phases of
their projects for the next financial year by end of this municipal financial
year in June so as to begin with actual implementation of these projects right
at the beginning of the new financial year in July and be able to complete them
on time.
We have already assisted the municipalities to register the projects quickly
by sending national and provincial officials involved in the approval process
to the concerned municipalities and attending to their queries. We have also
had meetings with municipalities and advised them on shortening the tender
procedures and the importance of appointing the service providers on time. We
are also facilitating the involvement of the Project Management Units (PMUs)
based at district level in assisting the implementation of the MIG programme in
those local municipalities where capacity may be lacking.
In essence, we are regarding the delay in project implementation and
incomplete projects as a thing of the past. The Department in conjunction with
the DPLG and SAICE has put together a programme to recruit and deploy senior
and retired engineers with the aim of augmenting on the existing engineering
capacity at municipal level. We have deployed a retired engineer to each of our
four district municipalities to help all municipalities within that district in
infrastructure delivery and in the process transfer the scarce skills to
officials in the municipalities.
Furthermore, engineering graduates and students have been deployed to the
local municipalities to do experiential learning with an objective to get the
municipalities to eventually absorb them to enhance their engineering capacity
and to develop the skills of young aspiring engineers. The four retired
engineers are Eddie van den Heerden for Central, Braam de Wet for Southern,
Leslie Whiteman for Bophirima and Hannes Schutte for Bojanala Platinum and they
are all present here today.
Disaster management: In my last yearâs budget speech, I emphasised the need
to equip our municipalities to be able to deal with all kinds of disaster in
their areas. Building on our successful handling of the Stilfontein quake
disaster early last year we entered the past year with confidence that we have
what it takes as a province to handle natural disasters. On the same breath, we
have taken a firm position to continue to beef up our disaster management
system to try and boost our readiness to minimise the impact of natural
disaster. The reality is that it is always difficult for any human being to
stop a natural disaster from occurring.
In the past financial year and to be precise earlier this year our province
was struck by yet another major disaster in the areas of Taung, Kagisano and
Naledi local municipalities. The torrential rainfalls in these areas left
certain areas in a challenging situation of distress. More than 2 000 houses
were destroyed together with several roads, bridges and other infrastructure,
leading to some communities being cut off from other communities. Apart from
three reported deaths, the school children in some of these communities missed
several days of school work as they could not access their schools.
The Department has taken an initiative in partnership with other sector
departments to ensure that the affected areas are relieved of the current
challenges and public infrastructure is restored to normality. The preliminary
assessments indicate that R64 million will be required for emergency housing,
R41 million for municipal access roads and bridges and R2 million for loss of
livestock. The above is just a preliminary indication. However, the
Inter-Ministerial Committee on Disaster Management has already committed
government to restoring these areas to normality. Let me therefore take this
opportunity to applaud the response we got from our disaster management team,
all spheres of government, the private sector as well as the community members
themselves in this regard.
In the past year we managed to assist the municipalities of Tswaing,
Ditsobotla and Kgetlengrivier with fire fighting equipment and vehicles worth
R15 million, in our aim to capacitate municipalities to deal with disaster
management in an efficient manner. In addition, the municipalities of Central
District,
Ramotshere Moiloa and Naledi were assisted with funds to repair and improve
their existing pool of vehicles in order to improve their readiness to deal
with disaster in their respective areas of jurisdiction.
This is the final year for municipalities and the province to get their
systems fully activated in terms of the requirements of the Disaster Management
Act. In this regard the department has provided R5 million to the four district
municipalities for this purpose.
An additional R20 million has been set aside to assist Tswaing, Maquassi
Hills, Mamusa, Ratlou and Naledi local municipalities to complete outstanding
disaster management projects and to introduce new ones.
Furthermore, each district municipality will get R500 000 to help them
implement the National Disaster Management System (NDMS). This will compliment
the National Disaster Management Centreâs initiative of developing a system to
control and operate all Disaster Management Centres from the national level
down to the local level. We will also give a further R25 million to each
District Municipality to assist them in educating communities about disaster
matters.
Human Settlement Strategy
The housing corporation: In the previous policy statement, I reported that
the Housing Corporation was on its way to recovery. We have successfully audit
all 21 411 instalment and 5 859 rental stock accounts of the corporation with
the resultant outcome of accounting for the status of the asset book.
As a result of this initiative we have developed and affected the Discount
Benefit Scheme approved by Executive Council (ExCo) aimed to afford occupants
the opportunity to own their houses after the application of the discount. The
following figures paint a clear picture of this impact:
* free transfer - 14 714 beneficiaries
* reduced instalment - 5 524 beneficiaries
* negative balances - 1 173 beneficiaries
However, the fate of the housing corporation had long been sealed with the
establishment of Housing and Infrastructure Delivery Company (HIDCO) and
recommendations to apportion the Corporationâs assets and liabilities to this
new entity. For reasons familiar to this house, the process is yet to be
completed. The need for a decisive leap has always been eminent; the
alternative would be equivalent to economic suicide for the province. Leaving
the status quo as is, may be detrimental in the long run and may result in
regrets when economic and political developments within the province leave us
wanting.
It therefore comes as no surprise, Madam Speaker, that the challenges facing
the housing corporation continue to haunt the North West without merit. Let me
take this opportunity to highlight some of the realities plaguing the
institution:
* Technical insolvency with obvious implications to the extent of failure to
service current debts and having the âwolves at the doorâ as itâs usually
said,
* A sense of entitlement and refusal to pay rental by our people clearly
violating the rule of law by tenants and the general careless attitude of
members of the public towards State owned assets. The same cannot be said for
privately owned portfolios of similar character in areas where the housing
corporation operates.
* Retarding growth in the local property market in the sense that,
* Rental rates charged by the corporation undermine national and provincial
economical realities,
* Property and land prices are out of touch with national and provincial
trends, and
* Current practices of the corporation impose limitations in attracting
development investment within the province. Our reservations as to whether the
housing corporation is still relevant in the current national and provincial
socio-economic which is further compounded by the Human Settlement Strategy
(HSS) adopted by National Cabinet should not be misconstrued as scepticism or
lack of faith in the honourable intentions of its current leadership and the
staff, but rather stem from our sincere analysis and awareness of our peopleâs
needs and expectations when viewed against the strategic focus and positioning
of the housing corporation in its current form. The changing emphases in the
provision of housing by government necessitates an urgent but bold rethink on
its continuous existence with prompt action to unbundled and integrate its
resources into the Department within the current financial year.
The question, though, is what interventions are required to create a smooth
transition from the housing corporation of today to a housing institution of
tomorrow, which is in tune or moves in sync with the current housing delivery
approach and policy imperatives. To this effect, two key areas of focus will be
on current asset liabilities of the corporation:
* Bringing to the close the North West Housing Corporation (NWHC) without
undue compromise to its human resource and remaining assets and
liabilities,
* Time bound winding down process strictly monitored and evaluated by the
Department regularly; and
* Providing expert support administratively and financially to facilitate a
smooth transition to the new housing institution.
Housing delivery: As I promised in my budget speech last year we managed to
take stock of what could have gone wrong in our housing delivery process that
led to our dismal performance in the 2004/05 financial year. Our bad record
could not escape the Presidentâs question during the Second Type Imbizo launch
at Rustenburg â Bojanala District Ambition. We took the opportunity to inform
the first citizen of South Africa what characterised our non-performance in
housing delivery and our plan forward to turnaround. Amongst others, these
included:
* poor performance by project managers and contractors
* poor workmanship by contractors
* problems with beneficiary applications at municipal and provincial
level
* slow payment process by the department to municipalities
* slow payment process from municipalities to project managers and
contractors.
Madam Speaker, I must indicate that we took a bold and an unpopular approach
to turnaround housing delivery. Our multi-pronged interventions targeted at the
above root courses with an induced hands-on approach to what is
constitutionally a provincial responsibility. We clarified the functional areas
for municipalities and the provincial government. In the main housing delivery
is constitutionally a provincial function with most municipalities acting as
agents for the province.
In setting the new housing delivery scene for the North West Province, we
couldnât but not avoid a complete re-look of our delivery process with the
following key considerations:
* Adopted a hands-on theme of taking charge of housing delivery, âHe who
pays the piper determines the tune!â We abandoned an arms length relationship
with our agencies and adopted a hands-on monitoring and support approach.
* We mapped the housing delivery process from policy pronouncement (housing
allocation), planning (township establishment process) and delivery
(construction of the top structure). Key to the delivery process is role
clarification and forward planning.
* Our critical path had to also deal with spreading the housing delivery
risk by way of unbundling monopolies, rewarding performance and taking over
from agencies and stakeholders who threatened our delivery record. To this end
we had attracted endless criticism from various quarters since their undue
interest were placed under duress. Our delivery record now speaks volumes and
more and more houses have been built.
During the last financial year, we were allocated an amount of R467,88
million for housing and an additional roll over of R141.915 million making our
total budget for housing to stand at R609,795 million. We also promised to
build a total of 22 000 houses which included the 5000 units each for Matlosana
and Rustenburg integrated human settlement pilot projects. We are therefore
humble and thrilled to report to this house that during the last financial
year, we have managed to build 14 808 houses, serviced over 14 638 sites and
approved 27 385 subsidy applications. In other words, R1.3 million has been
spent per day to give decent housing to 40 families in the province during the
past year.
I must hasten to say, however, that this did not affect our overall
performance at all. We are the best performer in housing delivery throughout
the country with vast improvement in both our expenditure and quality of
houses. Our expenditure moved from a disappointing 72 percent in the 2004/2005
financial year to 99.59 percent in the 2005/2006 financial year. This is a
massive 27.59 percent improvement in housing delivery expenditure. Our under
expenditure records are all low R2.495 767.40 in the 2005/2006 compared to
R141.915 million in the 2005/2006 financial year. We are wow listed as the best
performing province in South Africa compared to being the worst last year.
Our achievements in this regard are best echoed in âTips for Vilakaziâ from
Mboyi Mbewe of Jouberton in Matlosana who said: âI am not happy for having my
own house, because I donât have one, but I am happy for those who have houses.
Can you improve my life please.â I was moved by this tip in two ways.
First, because Mbewe recognises that although he does not have a house, he
is aware that the government has delivered houses to other people and that
should be celebrated. Secondly, Mbewe expresses hope that he will get his own
house one day. Such, Madam Speaker, is a sense of hope that characterises this
âage of hopeâ I mentioned earlier in my speech. For that, I vow, we will not
disappoint.
Madam Speaker, these achievements didnât go without any casualties as I
warned in the previous budget speech. Some contractors, whose performance and
workmanship was poor, had their contracts terminated. Municipalities whose
abilities to perform housing functions were not up to our satisfaction or were
experiencing institutional problems were warned and others like Taung, Mafikeng
and Naledi had their housing delivery functions withdrawn. This was done in the
spirit of housing delivery, and not as a means of punishment to the three
municipalities.
Madam Speaker allow me to also indicate some of the sobering highlights for
the 2005/06 achievements. For a very long time the community of Lokaleng stayed
in an emergency housing situation owing to the failure of the Mafikeng
Municipality to ensure housing delivery within the municipality.
We want to thank the intervention of the then Mayor Nomvula Hlangwana
through whom the community saw the construction of 350 houses within a period
of four months. The Lomanyaneng community will soon get into their newly
constructed homes after the former Mayorâs intervention and with the help of
the Department; we will deliver the houses to the people.
Madam Speaker, I want to reiterate our commitment to get women into the
housing construction business. Iâm also proud to inform this House that we have
an exemplary woman amongst our midstâs, who proved to us during the past year
that women can make it in housing given an opportunity to do so. I want to make
a special count of Mrs Maggie Moiloa of MoM Building Construction for her
outstanding work in turning the Reivilo Hostels into family units. I also want
to reiterate my call to women to open up and participate in this sector and
with our open door policy; we must begin to see more and more women
emerging.
Madam Speaker the Department remains committed to the Breaking New Grounds
Strategy and we will ensure that this plan is understood by all within housing
in the province. With this plan comes the question of accrediting
municipalities to perform housing functions. The Department has identified
Rustenburg Municipality as a pilot for accreditation and once all processes are
met, the municipality will be given level one accreditation.
The question of population growth remains a challenge to us and as we move
towards 2010, we need to accelerate the rate at which we have been providing
houses to our people. National policies and provincial allocations have not
been able to adequately respond to the ever changing nature of demand
especially from urbanisation pressures. For some time now concentration has
been on stand alone houses with immediate ownership, neglecting the rental
market.
In his State of the national addresses in 2001 and 2004, the State President
made a commitment towards the development of well located areas and to broaden
the current housing programme to accommodate the increasing demand for rental
housing. It is therefore our intention to make inroads and provide for the
rental market. We have already started the process of establishing Social
Housing Institutions (SHI) that will be responsible for the provision of social
housing within the province, so as to enhance mobility of people and to promote
a non-racial integrated society.
In the âTips for Vilakaziâ advert, an unidentified member of the community
suggested that we must adopt what he/she referred to as âhabitat implementation
processâ in which people help each other to build their own houses as part of
fast tracking housing delivery. It is for this reason, Madam Speaker, that I
also want to welcome the first person from this province to be awarded the
United Nations Habitat Scroll of Honour Award, Ms Rose Molokoane from Oukasie
in the Madibeng Local Municipality, who is also with us today.
She follows in the foot steps of the likes of former housing Minister,
Comrade Sankie Mthembi-Mahanyele who is one of the previous recipients of this
highest honour by the UN-Habitat for the role in housing the poor. Ms Molokoane
has contributed in housing more than 9 000 families in the province and over 30
000 across the country as a leader of structures such as the Peopleâs Dialogue,
South African Federation of the Homeless and Utshani Fund. She is one of our
own and has done us proud.
Housing allocation for the year 2006/07
Bojanala district municipalities
* Moretele Local Municipality - 1 000 units
* Madibeng Local Municipality - 2 500 units
Southern District Municipalities
* Klerksdorp Local Municipality - 2 500 units
* Merafong Local Municipality - 2 500 units
* Maguassi Hills Local Municipality - 1 000 units
* Potchefstroom Local Municipality - 1 000 units
Central District Municipality
* Mafikeng Local Municipality - 2 500 units
* Ratlou Local Municipality - 2 000 units
Bophirima District Municipality
* Taung Local Municipality - 2 000 units
* Naledi Local Municipality - 1 000 units
Conclusion
As we begin 2006/07 in earnest, allow me to quote Franklin Covey to preface
the common line of march for the journey ahead: âDo people in the Department of
Local Government and Housing make a difference?â
* Do they take responsibility for results, work with a clear purpose and
have a toolkit to survive change?
* Are they executing on their and the governments top priorities?
* Do they work collaboratively towards key goals and are they getting
results?
Madam Speaker, our response to Franklin Covey must be the main lessons
arising from the first term of local government are rather instructing and in
order for us to achieve a fully viable and consolidated local government system
in the second term, there are three strategic priorities to focus upon:
* mainstreaming hands on support to local government to improve municipal
governance, performance and accountability
* addressing the structure and governance arrangements of the state in order to
better strengthen, support and monitor local government
* refining and strengthening the policy, regulatory and fiscal environment for
local government and giving greater attention to the enforcement measures.
We can practise no more!
We can experiment no more!
We have to get the job done!
Let me return to pay tribute to the honourable Premier, BEE Molewa, for her
leadership and stewardship, my colleagues in ExCo who sharpen our wits with
their critical but frank interaction, the Chairperson and members of the
Standing Committee for your oversight and guidance, the mayors and their
municipalities, the HOD and all staff of the Department, the North West Housing
Corporation (NWHC) Board CEO and Staff last but not least, my wife Shirley and
my supportive children.
I thank you!
Issued by: Department of Local Government and Housing, North West Provincial
Government
15 May 2006
