“Laying a solid foundation”
Honourable Speaker
Honourable premier of the Western Cape
Provincial Cabinet colleagues
Members of the provincial legislature
Executive mayors
Partners in local government
Invited guests
Ladies and gentlemen
Mr Speaker, I would like to ask the house a question: What are we going to leave to our children? Will they have municipal infrastructure that gives them clean water, or will it make them sick? Will we pass on the values of honesty, hard work, and transparency or will we set an example of selfish and corrupt behaviour? Will we leave behind efficient, responsive municipalities, or municipalities that waste resources and do not listen to people?
We must think about these things, because we are building the foundation for our children. This foundation can allow them to fulfil their potential or prepare them for failure. It can ensure that they all have equal opportunities to succeed, or it can undermine their dreams.
As Minister of Local Government, I know that local government is closest to the people. We must get it right so that we can be proud of what we leave to our children.
Achievements of 2009/10
Mr Speaker, at the end of my budget speech last year I committed myself to a number of deliverables. I am pleased to report that all of them have been delivered. All municipalities comply with the Property Rates Act, we have exceeded our targets for anti-corruption training and support, 19 municipalities have improved performance management systems, our IDP learnership has been completed, the accountability of our community development workers has improved, our councillors have undergone leadership and Code of Conduct training, and municipal spending of capital budgets has improved. This is just the beginning, and in the coming year we will build on our successes.
Municipal infrastructure
Mr Speaker, one of the things that we must get right is our investment in the roads and pipes and sewerage plants that give us our basic services. We must maintain what we have, we must build new infrastructure, and we must have skilled technical people in municipalities.
My department has been hard at work on these issues. I asked my department to develop a bulk infrastructure master plan for water and sanitation for the province, and I am pleased to say that we have made good progress. We have completed a preliminary report that says we need at least R16 billion to address the backlog. We have finished a financing report that says that we need more funding from national government, but it also says that municipalities need to make better use of their existing revenue sources.
As I speak, the five district municipalities in the Province are in the process of conducting the feasibility studies that will form the basis of the Master Plan. The master plan will tell us what to build, how much it will cost, how many people must be trained to operate it, how we will fund it, and how we will implement it.
It will help us build for our future, and to build for our children.
In addition to the master plan, my department will assist municipalities to develop a register of all of their assets - like the roads and pipes and sewerage plants I just mentioned.
This register will include information on the age of that asset and when it should be replaced. This will have a huge impact on municipal budgeting, because it will tell municipalities how much of their budget must be dedicated to maintaining our infrastructure. We know that we can only maintain infrastructure if we have the right skills.
So we will be doing an audit of all the technical skills in municipalities and then, together with our partners the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) and the Department of Water Affairs, we will develop a long-term plan to build those skills in municipalities. We must not only build new infrastructure, we must also build people.
Disaster management
Mr Speaker, I asked whether our children will have clean water in the future. A more important question is, will they have water in the future?
The Eden district has been gripped by the worst drought in at least 132 years. My Provincial Disaster Management Centre (PDMC) has worked closely with Mossel Bay, George, Knysna and Bitou to deal effectively with this drought.
I am pleased to say that we are not only dealing with the present crisis, but we are also ensuring that our children in the Garden Route have enough water in the future.
Together with Provincial Treasury, my Disaster Management Centre has been able to mobilise R195 million in drought relief funding, and this funding is being used to implement pioneering projects. Knysna has installed its first desalination plant in Sedgefield, and further desalination plants will be built in Bitou and in Knysna itself.
The coastal municipalities are implementing water recycling projects, and 20 percent of their water will come from these projects. Most importantly, awareness campaigns have cut water consumption drastically, by 49 percent in Mossel Bay and 43 percent in George, for example. We will continue to assist these municipalities as they implement their emergency projects during 2010/11.
We have learned a lot from this experience and will share it with other municipalities. We are asking municipalities in the Province to make sure that their tariff policies include emergency tariffs, and we are asking every one of them to develop a drought management plan.
The key to managing disasters is to plan for them, to identify the risks, address them and be prepared. We will be helping disaster managers and integrated development planning managers in all municipalities to prepare disaster management plans as part of their integrated development plans between April and June, and will be providing more intensive disaster planning support to 12 municipalities throughout the year.
We are also doing disaster planning for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. The event will place huge stress in the Western Cape on services such as water and electricity supply and health, transport and security systems. The PDMC has, together with all municipalities and relevant stakeholders, identified the relevant risks and implemented plans to reduce those risks. We will be ready for any disaster during the 2010 event.
Mr Speaker, I would like to introduce you to Gerry the Giraffe. Gerry has a long neck and can spot disasters from far away. We developed this mascot to teach our children about the dangers of fires and floods and to tell them what they should do if there is a disaster. The Fire and Flood awareness campaign reached 13 schools and 3 876 learners over one month.
It included a poetry competition and an educational road show. The children loved the show and absorbed the information about safety tips and emergency numbers. We will expand this campaign during 2010/11 to reach many more learners.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of the people who spent long, hot hours fighting all of the fires during the past summer season. We are increasing our capacity to support this vital service. We will co-ordinate the various training initiatives across the Province and will publish regulations that will assist municipalities to streamline fire services. This will ensure that a more efficient and effective service is provided to communities. We are doing these things because our children deserve to live in communities that are safe from disasters.
Capacity support
Mr Speaker, if we want to build a solid foundation for our children, then we need to build strong, accountable municipalities. We have a lot of work to do if we want to achieve this.
The first thing we must do is to ensure that municipal councillors and officials are held accountable. One way to do this is to build effective performance management systems. During this past year we have supported 19 municipalities to improve their performance management systems, and we are developing performance indicators for ward committees. We will continue this support in the coming year.
During the past month, my department has visited every municipality to ask them what their key capacity challenges are. This has formed part of the national local government turnaround strategy process. My department will take the information provided by municipalities and update our municipal support plans to ensure tailor made support. We will create a central “pool of expertise” from which experts can be deployed to municipalities at short notice.
My department has strengthened its relationship with the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA). The DBSA provides hands-on support to Kannaland, Matzikama, Bergrivier, Cederberg and Saldanha Bay municipalities through the deployment of finance, planning and engineering experts.
Talking with communities
Mr Speaker, in September 2009 I sent my whole department out into the field as part of the turnaround strategy process. They went from door to door asking people whether they were happy with government service delivery and whether they felt the municipality was listening to them.
Some municipalities are doing very well on these issues. But Mr Speaker, most of our people said that they do not know who is on their ward committee, that the concerns raised in ward committee meetings are not taken up by the municipality that their ward councillor does not report back to them and that they do not receive responses to their individual service delivery complaints.
I am worried about this because accountability is at the heart of good governance and service delivery. In the coming year, my Department will assist municipalities to develop and implement effective communication strategies. It will continue to provide support and training on public participation. Accountability cannot remain in the council chamber but must be rooted in the communities we serve.
Community based planning
Mr Speaker, our turnaround strategy survey in September also revealed that people do not see visible change in their communities. For them, their municipal integrated development plan is just a document. It does not speak to their lives.
Now, Mr Speaker, I know that during the past financial year all 30 municipalities in the Western Cape submitted integrated development plans, and that 28 of the 30 integrated development plans met the basic requirements for a credible integrated development plans.
I think this is a great achievement, but having a credible integrated development plan does not mean that the IDP speaks to people on the ground. Our people must be able to see how their integrated development plan will improve their lives.
It is for this reason that I am intensifying my support to municipalities on community based planning. I have asked each municipality to target a poor ward and to ensure that a ward plan is drawn up for that area. The plan must identify the specific changes that will happen in that community in the coming year.
This approach must be extended to all other wards after the 2011 local government elections. We will also continue to improve the integrated development plan as a whole. My Integrated Development Plan unit assisted individual municipalities with the improvement of their integrated development plans, and we completed the first provincial Integrated Development Plan Certificate Training programme in the country. Altogether 24 municipalities benefited from this programme.
Good governance
Mr Speaker, during the past year I have been very troubled by the behaviour of some of our councillors. Power has shifted frequently in some coalition councils, and councillors use this as an opportunity to make deals that benefit them personally but that disadvantage the municipality. They get rid of competent municipal officials and appoint their own people.
We can call this many things: nepotism, cronyism, or cadre deployment. I call it wrong. I would like to congratulate those municipalities where this does not happen. You are setting a good example for our children. You are teaching them that they will succeed in life if they study and work hard. You are teaching them to succeed on the basis of merit and not on the basis of being friends with a politician.
I am beefing up my Department’s capacity to monitor these trends in municipalities and to take effective action. Some councils are taking decisions that are clearly outside of the law. They are convening meetings and taking decisions without a quorum. They are getting rid of competent managers without good reasons.
My department will ensure that Councils act within the law and I will take firm action if they are not. Councillors must start to pay from their own pockets for their bad decisions.
Last year I said that the way to combat fraud and corruption was to prevent it from happening in the first place. I am proud to say that my department has exceeded its targets in this respect. Good Governance training was conducted at 10 municipalities. The department rolled out ethics management training in eight municipalities. We also provided assistance to seven municipalities in the development of anti-corruption strategy and implementation plans.
Twenty four of our 30 municipalities have received unqualified audits, and I would like to congratulate them on their achievement. I would like to strengthen Internal Audit units in municipalities together with Provincial Treasury, because they can play such a vital role in preventing and detecting corrupt practices.
I will ask the national Minister of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs to change the legislation to ensure that Internal Audit units report directly to the Audit Committee in addition to reporting to the municipal manager and that the Audit Committee can report directly to me if the work of the Internal Audit unit is being blocked within the municipality.
In the coming year, my department will conduct a fraud and ethics survey for 29 local and district municipalities. It will also conduct a two days workshop with 11 municipalities to assist with the implementation of fraud prevention plans. In short, we will teach people how to spot fraud and corruption and how to act on it quickly and effectively. We must leave a legacy of clean government.
Taking services to the people
Mr Speaker, the people of this Province need to have access to government services and to jobs. It is our responsibility as government to make sure that we reach them with our services, and this is especially true in rural areas. This is where our Community Development Workers come in. As a result of their work, many more people receive disability, pension and child support grants. They also receive important information in workshops, for example about HIV and AIDS prevention or starting your own business.
Let me give two examples of the positive impact of community development workers. Welile Mbonja, a physically challenged community development worker, assisted the community to establish Masincedane Association in Langa, which is a non profit organisation. The aim of the association is to empower the physically disabled through skills development programs and capacity building initiatives.
Welile managed to raise R73 000 from Eskom and R19 600 from the Department of Social Development for sewing materials and leather. Welile also founded a wheel chair bound basketball club named the “Shining Stars”.
Anna Simons, a community development worker from Kalbaskraal, identified eight learners whose parents had no money for school uniforms. Through Anna’s intervention, a businesswoman, the local councillor and the Kraaltjie Community Centre joined forces and bought the school uniforms. Imagine the impact on these children’s lives, and the impact that such small actions can have on helping our children to reach their potential.
I am excited that responsibility for the Thusong centres is being transferred to my department. Thusong centres are places where people gain access to a range of government services in one place. This saves them valuable time and transport money. Community development workers are an important link between the Thusong Centres and communities.
Community development workers make people aware of the services that are available in the centres, they use the Centres for workshops, and they extend the work of the centres into rural communities. If a person lives far away from a Thusong Centre but needs to apply for a grant, then the community development worker can provide the form to be filled in, help the person to fill in the form, take the form to the Thusong Centre and then provide feedback on the outcome. In effect, the community development workers are the outreach arm of the Thusong centres.
I have three aims for the Thusong centres for the coming year. I will make them financially sustainable so that they provide services well into the future. I will strengthen the outreach service already provided by community development workers.
Lastly, I want the centres to become places where people can get information about jobs and learn to start their own businesses. Already 11 of the centres have job creation projects or provide business training, and I will increase this. The Thusong centres must become places of help and hope, not only for our generation but for our children.
Sustainable local government
Mr Speaker, I am deeply concerned about how much it costs to run a municipality and deliver services. I believe that most municipalities in the Western Cape are serious about addressing their developmental challenges. But addressing poverty and underdevelopment requires significant funding, and most municipalities simply do not generate sufficient revenue.
The determination of annual increases in salaries and wages is out of the hands of local municipalities. For the period 1 June 2009 to 1 July 2011, salaries and wages of Local Government staff will have increased by between 35 percent and 38 percent.
Senior managers will no doubt demand similar increases. This leaves municipalities with no alternative but to increase their rates, tariffs and service charges. The knock-on effect is that the burden of rates and service charges is getting heavier for people. I am very worried about this, and also about the manner in which property rates are determined.
We must review the manner in which South African Local Government Association (SALGA) negotiates on behalf of local authorities because we cannot continue along what is clearly an unsustainable path. We must also assess the methods that we use to assess property rates, because this must be fair and must ensure that we do not chase people out of their homes. We must leave our children a solid financial legacy: affordable municipal bills, but at the same time financially viable municipalities.
Working with each other
Mr Speaker, earlier this year the Province changed the management and format of its intergovernmental forums. The Premier’s Co-ordinating Forum is meant to be a place where municipalities and Province come together to talk about common challenges and to coordinate and plan.
Agenda items can now be proposed by both provincial and local government, and there are no sacred cows. We have made these changes and have already convened three successful premier’s coordinating forums. The spirit and discussions at these forums have been positive and engaging, and I look forward to further productive interactions with municipalities in the coming year.
Conclusion
Mr Speaker, it is our responsibility to think of tomorrow, because tomorrow belongs to our children. I would like to make a pledge to the children of this Province: I will do everything in my power to make sure that you will one day inherit municipalities that listen to you and respond to you, that provide you with a safe environment, that deliver good, affordable services, and that are transparent and clean. I will do everything I can to build a solid foundation so that you can reach for the stars.
