Traditional Affairs 2006/07 Budget Vote presented by M Mabuyakhulu
21 April 2006
PEOPLEâS POWER THROUGH LOCAL GOVERNMENT
Mr Speaker;
The Honourable Premier Mr Sibusiso Ndebele;
Deputy Speaker;
Members of the Provincial Executive Council;
Honourable Members of the Provincial Legislature;
Amakhosi;
Mayors and Councillors of Municipalities;
Director-General and Heads of the various Departments;
Excellencies, members of the diplomatic corps;
Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen;
Senior officials of government departments;
Members of the media;
Comrades and citizens of KwaZulu-Natal.
I rise to table the Budget for Vote 11, the Department of Local Government
and Traditional Affairs, in my capacity as the Executing Authority of the
Department.
In his epic poem, Ben Okri writes:
The new era is already here:
Here the new time begins anew.
The new era happens every day.
Every day is a new world,
A new calendar.
All great moments, all great eras,
Are just every moment
And every day writ large.
Thousands of years of loving, failing, killing,
Creating, surprising, oppressing,
And thinking ought now to start
To bear fruit, to deliver their rich harvest."
Honourable Chairperson and Honourable Members, in the year 1994, a new era
dawned for South Africa when we ushered in freedom. Two years later, in 1996,
we cemented this freedom when South Africa adopted the countryâs first
democratic Constitution. Our Constitution was and continues to be hailed as
among the most progressive in the world. At the policy level we had cemented
our freedom.
In the same year, we moved even further with entrenching democracy when we
held the first local government elections. This was a practical step at
creating and institutionalising a cadre of development activists whose sole
purpose was to breathe to the promises contained in our Constitution. Ben Okri
would have referred to these watershed local government elections as a âgreat
momentâ and a âgreat eraâ. From 1996 to today, our system of local government,
just like our fledgling democracy, has undergone many years âof loving,
failing, killing, creating, surprising, oppressingâ.
Indeed, it has been the best of times; it has been the worst of times.
However, I think we will all agree now that out of the rollercoaster ride that
has defined our local government in the past, a new era is in the making. This
is a new time, from which an effective, efficient, accountable and
developmental local government is emerging. Many among us who have been
following the transformation of the local sphere of our governance will agree
that, unlike earlier on, our local governance system is beginning to experience
an important era away from the problems of the past, into the possibility of a
better and prosperous future. Just Like the whole of South Africa, our system
of local governance is bustling in the season of hope.
Honourable Chairperson and Honourable Premier, I stand here with pride on
the coming of age of our democracy. We have just come through a successful free
and fair election process where the people of our Province once again gave this
government a clear mandate to take this system of local government forward and
change the lives of the people of KwaZulu-Natal for the better.
We have learnt many lessons and identified gaps that exist in our system and
I can confidently say we are now well positioned to take the challenge and
deliver on the mandate we are given by this Province and the country at
large.
Honourable Members our department faces very challenging but exciting times,
firstly with the passing of the new Traditional Leadership and Governance Act
(Act no 5 of 2005), which ushers in the transformation of our traditional
institutions so that they can play a meaningful role as part of our democratic
system of Governance. The second area of opportunity for us comes with the
beginning of the second term of Local Government system which signifies the
third phase which is the consolidation phase.
This primary focus of this phase is the acceleration of delivery of services
to communities. The benchmarks that we have set for this phase is to have
effectively functioning municipalities that are corruption free, that have
prudent financial management and are financially viable. During this phase we
want municipalities that pay serious attention to the maintenance and provision
of services such as water, electricity, roads. We want a municipality with
sound Local Economic Development plans. From 2006 to 2011 we want to have good
governed municipalities that are rooted in community participation and are
accountable to the people they serve. This Honourable Chairperson is the key
performance areas that will inform our hands on support from now on to
2011.
In writing Ben Okri warns that "You can't remake the world without remaking
yourself". We could not therefore as the Department of Local Government and
Traditional Affairs hope to lead the consolidation phase without remaking
ourselves. In pursuit of this critical pre-requisite, the Department has just
completed its restructuring process and is now well positioned to play its
oversight role which is to support, monitor and capacitate municipalities, in
order to enable them to deliver services faster to communities.
Honourable Chairperson and Members, as we set out to implement our programme
of action in this financial year, we will seek to give effect to the notion of
developmental local government which is aimed at ensuring the ongoing
development of our communities. We also will focus our energies towards the
strengthening of synergistic relationships between Local Government and
Traditional Institutions.
1. Background
Chairperson we continue to reflect on our strategic objectives of ensuring
good governance, sustainable municipalities and participatory democracy. We
seek to promote strong co-operative governance between the three spheres of
government by pooling the resources together and provide integrated hands on
support. With the experience that we have acquired we will be mainstreaming the
Project Consolidate âHands-on-supportâ to all municipalities in our Province.
We have seen significant improvement in service delivery where this integrated
support has been implemented.
2. Overview for 2005/06
Honourable Chairperson, in the previous year we made significant delivery
commitments in our budget. Allow me to outline some of these areas and progress
we made in this regard.
2.1 Rationalisation of Old Order Legislation
We have made significant progress in this regard with the finalisation of
the Local Government Laws Repeal Bill which is currently in the Parliamentary
Processes for finalisation into Law. We also made significant progress in
drafting the Planning and Development Bill which will also be processed during
the course of the current financial year. We will also work towards the
finalisation of the White Paper on Local Government which we anticipate to
finalise in the next financial year.
2.2 Delivery of Infrastructure through the MIG
Honourable Chairperson, the Municipal Infrastructure Grant (MIG) remains the
key instrument that must stimulate job opportunities and improve the conditions
for growth and development at local government level. During the year under
review, our department continued to provide the requisite support to
municipalities with low capacity levels to enhance the levels of service
delivery.
It should be noted, Honourable Chairperson, that our Province continue to be
the best performer in spending our MIG funding when compared nationally, which
demonstrate our departmentâs commitment to supporting municipalities. For the
current budget cycle an amount of R1.4 billion has been set aside for the
investment in basic municipal infrastructure.
2.3 Implementation of Property Rates Act
Honourable Members, this legislation is set to take effect from 2008/09
financial years. I am proud to announce that my department has set the process
in motion to ensure that adequate capacity exists in municipalities. We have
set up shared services support unit in our department to assist municipalities
with accessing their database and saving those consultants costs.
2.4 The KwaZulu-Natal Traditional Leadership and Governance Act
The KwaZulu-Natal Traditional Leadership and Governance (Act no 5 of 2005)
was passed in 2005 ushering the transformation of traditional institutions in a
democracy.
2.5 Community Development Workers
Honourable Chairperson, we have trained a total of 400 community development
workers (CDWs) and an additional 11 from Umzimkhulu who are ready to be
launched in various wards. We will be absorbing these 411 CDWs into our
establishment, which will enhance access by communities of basic services.
2.6 Umsekeli Municipal Services
We have initiated the process of rounding off the services of Umsekeli
Municipal Services. The function previously performed by Umsekeli will now be
performed by the department. We have had an outstanding response from
municipalities to absorb staff from Umsekeli which will minimise job
losses.
3. Priorities for the year 2006/07
The vision of the department is to promote people centred local government,
which puts people at the centre of development.
3.1 Programme 1: Administration R110,898 million
Honourable Chairperson, this programme focuses on effective support to the
line function activities and the Ministry. It will focus on ensuring effective
performance management, finalise the restructuring of the department,
establishing capacity building unit for internal and external support, will
develop monitoring and evaluation system and unit to ensure effective
management of departmental performance. The unit will focus on procuring
adequate capacity and skills to position the department in supporting
municipalities. It will ensure high level training and skills development for
the departmental staff. It will empower managers to comply with legislation and
regulations especially the new Supply Chain Management Framework.
3.2 Programme 2: Local Government R199,522 million
Honourable Chairperson and Members, as I have already indicated, the recent
Local Government Elections present challenges and opportunities for my
department in a number of ways. As we set in motion the last phase of this
system of local government namely the consolidation phase, which focuses on
accelerated service delivery, we need to sharpen the skills and capacity at
local government level to ensure enhanced service delivery.
As we reflect on the state of municipal finance and administration, we note
that the administrative capacity and financial viability of most municipalities
continues to be compromised by the lack of effective procedures and systems,
limited municipal finance skills and poor governance oversight in some
council.
A number of municipalities continue to be grant dependant due to lack of
revenue streams and in some cases lack of proper systems of revenue collection.
The critical area of clean and accountable local government, which maintains
and restores the confidence of the communities in the system of local
government, remains a priority.
As a targeted intervention the department continues to implement the
Management Assistance Programme (MAP), support given jointly by the department
and Provincial Treasury in the implementation of the Municipal Finance
Management Act (MFMA). The implementation of shared services signifies the
state of readiness of the department to escalate capacity support to struggling
municipalities. We completed 17 forensic investigations and implemented
surcharge action on four municipalities.
The Department is on course to establish ward committees in all
municipalities. All municipalities have applied to be of ward participatory
type. We have developed training programmes for ward committees which are now
adopted by National to ensure effective and accountable ward committees who are
responsive to the needs of the communities.
In supporting municipalities with the implementation of the Property Rates
Act, a generic set of guidelines has been developed as a support tool for
municipalities.
In a continued sound partnership with the DBSA, we have developed training
programmers for councillors as the utmost priority. We have also aligned our
efforts with KwaZulu-Natal South African Local Government Association (SALGA)
to ensure integrated training and capacity building support for the newly
elected councillors.
In terms of our municipal infrastructure programme, we will continue with
our hands on support to keep our good performance as a Province.
Our Province continues to be experiencing low delivery of free basic
services due to lack of infrastructure or lack of financial viability. We will
support municipalities to improve access to free basic services by at least 10%
in this current financial year.
Disasters continue to plague the Province and our state of readiness to
respond to these disasters remain uncoordinated. We will be holding an
international disaster management conference on 25 and 26 May 2006 to develop
strategies that will improve our provinceâs state of readiness on the one hand
and on the other to learn lessons from other countries who have been victims of
disasters like the United States and Thailand.
3.3 Programme 3: Development Planning R111,949 million
During my previous budget speech, I emphasised the need for new planning and
development legislation for the Province and I am pleased to report that good
progress has been made with the drafting of such legislation. The KwaZulu-Natal
Planning and Development Bill, which is intended to repeal all old order
provincial planning and development legislation, will establish a sound base
for municipal land use management.
The KwaZulu-Natal land use management guidelines have been identified to
meet the demands in traditional institutions.
The unit will enhance the implementation of Project Consolidate, especially
to ensure that we align ourselves with the decision of the National Cabinet
Lekgotla to mainstream project consolidate approach in all municipalities even
those that are outside project consolidate.
We will focus on supporting municipalities that fall in the major provincial
corridor developments to have meaningful alignment to achieve economic benefits
through job creation and economic regeneration of some of these areas.
We are making significant progress in engaging key departments in the IDP
review process and we believe we are well on our way to achieving strategic
integrated plans for all municipalities.
We will continue to set up systems in all municipalities that will
strengthen municipal performance and reporting. Although substantial effort has
been directed towards assisting municipalities with the establishment of their
organizational performance management systems, we still need to strengthen the
linkage between the individual and organisational performance management
systems.
Poor planning capacity especially in smaller municipalities continues to
undermine the quality of IDP. We will focus on establishing shared services to
alleviate this challenge; five districts are already applying this concept.
There is an extensive Provincial IDP assessment programme scheduled to take
place in May 2006 which will assist the new councils to effectively interpret
and understand the contents of their IDP.
3.4 Programme 4: Traditional Institutional Management R87,476 million
Last year I announced that my department was finalising the Traditional
Leadership legislation. The Traditional Leadership and Governance Act (Act 5 of
2005) were passed by this Provincial Parliament in November last year. The Act
was a culmination of hearings held by the Portfolio Committee for Local
Government and Traditional Affairs. I wish to thank the Portfolio Committee and
all those who participated and gave valuable input into the process leading up
to the promulgation of this legislation.
Honourable Chairperson, the challenge before us is in this area of our work
is the implementation of the provincial legislation and managing the
transformation of the traditional institutions.
As part of the implementation of the national legislation, we transformed
100 traditional authorities into traditional councils and we will finalise the
remaining 183 including incorporating Amakhosi of the Umzimkhulu area.
We are currently finalising the regulations to support this legislation. We
will be establishing 11 local houses by the end of June 2006 and will
reconstitute the Provincial House by the end of July 2006.
We are currently developing training programmes for capacitating all the
newly established institutions.
We will be focusing on capacitating Amakhosi on the principles of good
governance and building synergistic partnerships between the traditional
institutions and municipalities.
The roll-out of the Communal Land Right Act (Act 11 of 2004) (CLARA)
presents a new era for land administration in rural areas. It seeks to bring in
transformation of the land right regime as we currently know it. Our major
challenge will be to ensure alignment between the requirements of CLARA and the
traditional leadership legislation.
CLARA will take away some of the responsibilities currently resting with
officials of my Department. We are currently engaging the Department of Land
Affairs at Ministerial level to clarify the roles and new mandates as
determined by the legislation.
Last year I also announced benefits to Amakhosi including housing. We have
just finalised the tender processes for the first phase of 35 houses for
Amakhosi. The priority is being given to those amakhosi where our analysis
showed that there is a greatest need, and we therefore anticipate that the
first phase of construction of these houses shall be completed by November
2006.
As far as pensions, medical benefits and insurance is concerned, my
department did preliminary work with the major institutions and have since
passed that work to the Commission on Public Office Bearers to align for all
provinces. We are awaiting the final decision and presidential ascension of
this policy.
3.5 Programme 5: Urban and Rural Development R85,740 million
Inadequate financial resources continue to challenge effective
implementation as the integrated and coordinated delivery eludes government
initiatives. The department is currently mobilising critical national
department to provide assistance in driving the strategy on the ground. We have
developed a thematic approach for the rural nodes which we will align and link
with other provincial lead programmes such as agrarian revolution.
As part of supporting development, priorities will be given to the
Presidential nodal areas to enhance Local Economic Development.
The vision of government to increase access to services by bringing services
closer to the people continue to be undermined by poor coordination by various
department. My department is currently developing a strategy to ensure fully
operational and sustainable Multi-Purpose Community Centres (MPCC) that are
self sustainable.
We are also strengthening the partnership with municipalities in the
continued maintenance and support required by municipalities.
To support the transformation of the traditional institutions we are
currently upgrading and converting the tribal courts into traditional
administrative centres where traditional councils will be able to perform their
traditional and developmental functions.
We will be absorbing the 411 CDWs into our staff establishment, we will
further be launching the 411 CDWs into identified wards and integrating their
work with the work of ward committees. We will also outline their roles to the
councillors to alleviate perceptions that they compete with the
councillors.
4. Policy highlights
Honourable Chairperson, we have a series of highlights for our department
during this financial year.
4.1 Project Consolidate
In our endeavour to provide effective hands on support we will mainstream
the hands on approach to all municipalities experiencing capacity challenges in
one form or the other. We have seen the benefits of this approach in most of
the project consolidate municipalities.
4.2 Strategies to address Scarce Skills
To address the scarce skills challenges in municipal finance and
infrastructure development, we are embarking on a long term strategy of
implementing learnerships in municipal finance and infrastructure (engineering
and technical) areas. Learners who will be targeted will be residents in
municipal areas.
We will further be tapping on capacity resources in the engineering sector
provided by Governor of the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) as part
of project consolidates support.
4.3 Training for Councillors and Ward Committees
We will be embarking in partnership with SALGA and Department of Provincial
and Local Government (DPLG) on a targeted and sustainable training of
Councillors and Ward Committees in a structured approach at strategic intervals
throughout the year.
4.4 Deepening Local Democracy
We will be establishing ward committees in all municipalities to enhance the
participation of communities in local governance and building confidence in the
system of local government.
4.5 Shared Services
We will promote the extension of the shared services approach to other
services where positive outcome has been achieved in some of the key
services.
4.6 Budget compliance
The Province should celebrate the successes even at smaller scale. All
municipalities in this province submitted their budgets on time, an achievement
realised by our province only. We will endeavour to ensure that they are able
to submit both the budget and financial statements on time.
Honourable Chairperson the road ahead of us is challenging but exciting. For
us to succeed we need strong partnerships with all our stakeholders.
We therefore call on all the honourable members of this house to join hands
with us and play an active role in the strengthening of our system of local
government.
Once again in his poem, Ben Okri asks of all of us:
"Will you be at the harvest,
Among the gatherers of new fruits?
Then you must begin today to remake
Your mental and spiritual world,
And join the warriors and celebrants
Of freedom, realises of great dreams."
It has to be that those who will be "at the harvest" of our efforts and
"among the gatherers of new fruits" must be the ordinary people of
KwaZulu-Natal. As we prepare to join "the warriors and celebrants of freedom"
and "realises of great dreams" we must do so within the context of
partnerships.
I am glad that we can count on the wisdom and support of this hallowed
house.
I thank you.
Issued by: Department of Local Government, Housing and Traditional Affairs,
KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Government
21 April 2006
