Ladysmith
5 October 2007
Durban: President Thabo Mbeki will this week lead a top-level government
team to KwaZulu-Natal as part of the Presidential Imbizo which will be held in
the Uthukela District Municipality. The two-day event starts on Saturday and
ends on Sunday. The Uthukela District Municipality which includes towns such as
Ladysmith, Bergville and Colenso, remains one of the poorer areas in
KwaZulu-Natal. It is hoped, however, that the President's visit will unlock
some of the bottlenecks standing in the way of development and also kick-start
new projects in the area.
Announcing the event today Friday, 5 October in Durban, Director-General
(DG) of the KwaZulu-Natal Dr Kwazi Mbanjwa said Izimbizo were part of
government's programme geared at speeding up the pace of delivery. "One of the
features of the Izimbizo is the submission of various reports to the President
for his consideration. The other feature is getting people to voice their needs
and expectations during an open session. A new addition in KwaZulu-Natal is the
introduction of instant services to the citizens at the Imbizo. This is truly
taking democracy and service delivery to the people," said Mbanjwa.
Dr Mbanjwa said government was meaningless unless it impacted positively on
the lives of the people of all races, gender and creed. The DG told journalists
that KwaZulu-Natal remained a largely rural province facing poverty and
unemployment of the majority. Out of the 2 272 000 households in KwaZulu-Natal,
approximately 679 836 or 29% are without access to basic water services.
Approximately R4 008 billion is required to address the water backlog. This
excludes funding required for bulk supplies," said Dr Mbanjwa.
With respect to sanitation, Dr Mbanjwa said 992 600 or 43,7% of households
did not yet enjoy basic sanitation service. This would however be eliminated
soon. "Eradication costs are approximately R3 305 billion. KwaZulu-Natal is
fortunate in that very few bucket sanitation systems were in operation during
apartheid. As a result only 292 bucket latrines needed to be eliminated. We
must say we are therefore pleased that KwaZulu-Natal will be the first province
to eliminate the bucket sanitation system by 2008, at a total cost of R4,2
million," he said.
Unlike sanitation, electricity remained a bigger challenge.
"Some 773 644 or 34,1% of households in KwaZulu-Natal still do not have
electricity connection. Electrification costs to address this backlog amount to
approximately R8,001 billion. We are pleased that at least 36 769 households
were electrified in 2006/07," said Dr Mbanjwa. One other challenge was that the
backlog was often bigger than the allocated funds: "Grant funding over the
Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) 2007/08 through 2009/10, as published
in the Division of Revenue Act, 2007, for Municipal Infrastructure Grant (MIG)
(water component) is R2 925 949 759. This again means there is a huge
shortfall," said Dr Mbanjwa.
He said progress had been made in the provision of water. An estimated 175
961 households had already been provided with water through the MIG programme
last year. A programme for the installation of 20 water purification plants to
provide short-term assistance in meeting the water supply national target of
2008 had also been launched. In spite of the shortfall in funding, so far 25
442 households were provided with sanitation services last year. The Indaka
Municipality in the Uthukela District Municipality would have 99% of its
buckets eradicated this year:
"The current completion status is 99%. Another example is the Umzimkhulu
Cross Boundary Municipality which has 100 buckets to be eradicated. The current
completion status is 40%," the Director-General said. Dr Mbanjwa also outlined
some of the constraints standing in the way of delivery by municipalities in
KwaZulu-Natal. The Director-General said it was worrying that some of the
municipalities which had no revenue base of their own relied entirely on
grants.
"Current MIG and INEP funding levels as published for the MTEF 2007/08
through 2009/10 are approximately 10% of what is required to address the
backlogs in water, sanitation and electricity, within the national sector
timeframes," said Dr Mbanjwa.
Dr Mbanjwa noted that at current funding levels, the eradication of backlogs
will take three and seven years. That of electricity will take longer. He
suggested that other sources of funding (private sector, donor, et cetera) be
found to reduce the dependency on grants from the national fiscus. The capacity
of local governments in respect of human resources and appropriate skills would
need attention. Currently, technical capacity at municipal level is so limited
that a substantial increase in funding as described above would be absorbed and
utilised with difficulty.
Backlog eradication and MIG implementation is faced with the challenge of
general lack of capacity at municipal and provincial level. This is the
experience in a national context in as far as the whole country is concerned.
Clearly, capacity within the provincial sphere, as the primary municipal
support institution, will also need to be substantially enhanced and as a
matter of extreme urgency. Dr Mbanjwa noted however that the economy of
KwaZulu-Natal had grown to being the second biggest after Gauteng on the back
of growth in the tourism sector manufacturing and the services sector.
Enquiries:
Mr Mandla Msomi
Tel: 033 341 3342
Cell: 0823173727
Issued by: Office of the Premier, KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Government
5 October 2007
