Local Government, Ms Nomatyala Hangana
6 June 2007
Chairperson
Honourable MEC for Local Government
Our Traditional Leadership
Honourable Members of the House
People in the gallery
Distinguished guests
Chairperson, the honourable Minister earlier talked about our achievements
regarding our Project Consolidate interventions and the important relationship
between our basic services and infrastructure delivery and economic development
initiatives at a local level. It is important that we build on talk more about
these themes.
The National Council of Provinces (NCOP) stands at the apex of our
Intergovernmental Relations (IGR) system and brings together all three spheres
in areas of policy deliberation and legislation. As such the NCOP has a crucial
role to play in ensuring that the system of a co-operative government works
effectively. Chairperson I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate
the NCOP on its initiative to take NCOP to the people. Direct interactions with
the people of our country have become a routine practices that contribute to
deepening democracy and responsiveness to the developmental needs of our
communities.
Summary of key achievements and challenges
Honourable Members should note that we have done well to improve the
adoption rate of Integrated Development Plans (IDPs), which stands at 98% for
the 2006/07 financial year, all Premiers Co-ordinating Forums are established
and all 46 district have established their intergovernmental forums in terms of
the Intergovernmental Relations Framework Act of 2005, provinces have
established Monitoring and Evaluation units in their Offices of the Premier.
These intergovernmental processes have in part directly contributed to the
steady progress that we are making in addressing our service delivery backlogs
and challenges.
Madam Speaker, the President, in his State of the Nation Address said that
this year we should complete concrete plans on implementation of the targets
for universal access to water in 2008, sanitation in 2010 and electricity in
2012.
Today we can report on some key indicators of progress. The current national
backlogs on the use of the sanitation bucket system stands at 106 873
households. We are confident that our immediate target to eradicate these
backlogs will be achieved by December 2007.
Universal access to water supply has increased from 59% of the total
households in 1994 to 86% by April 2007. Universal access to sanitation
increased from 48% in 1994 to 73% by April 2007. Honourable members, we know
where these backlogs are spread throughout our municipalities and the kinds of
assistance and support that they require.
In closing his State of the Nation address, the President was correct to say
that, "we are not there yet, but no one, except ourselves, shall ensure that
this dream is realised. And so, let us roll up our sleeves and get down to
work, fully understanding that the task to build the South Africa for which we
yearn is a common responsibility, we all share."
Learning from experiences and feeding these lessons into policy reform
processes. What makes us comfortable to talk openly about these challenges is
the fact that we do believe that we have the full might of the
intergovernmental machinery as well as the support of major private sector
partners behind us to deal with many of these challenges. We believe and we
have proven this through the two-years of implementing Project Consolidate
since 2004, that with collaborative working and partnerships, we can get faster
and better quality services to our communities.
The lessons learnt, will therefore feed into a review of the White Paper on
Local Government, to bring aspects of policy in line with practice, and the
development of a coherent policy framework for provincial government. As
partners in development, we should heed the President's call in his State of
the Nation Address to ensure that our development initiatives do not exclude
the often-marginalised groups in our society our children, youth, women and
people with disabilities.
To the extent possible, we have to afford these designated groups access to
opportunities for development and advancement and continue to capacitate them
so that they not only benefit from our development initiatives but also are
able to contribute to the achievement of our development objectives, now and in
the future. Going forward, partnerships are critical if we wish to succeed in
bringing quality services, especially for vulnerable groups:
We are committed, going forward; to focus the partnerships we have built to
enable more attention to be paid to improving the quality of delivery,
especially aimed at vulnerable groups such as women, children, the youth and
disabled. Violence against women and children remains one of the most pressing
challenges in South Africa. Entrenched social and cultural norms make gender
based violence a particularly difficult problem. But, we do not need to feel
defeated by this difficult challenge of violence against women and children⦠it
is with the small things that we do that we can make a difference.
Local government has a big role to play. By paying attention to very small
things they should ensure that their planning and service delivery focuses a
holistic, targeted approach to ending violence against women and children.
Members would recall that 16 Days of Activism Campaign has already intensified
its fight against gender-based violence by getting all the partners together,
including big business and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to once more
put the issue of women and children's safety on the national agenda. We have
done so by launching our 365 days National Action Plan early this year, which
aims at dealing with this scourge in a more interventionist and programmatic
way.
As the campaign, we still insist on taking the action plan to where it has
never been, and where it matters the most. We are taking it to the rural areas,
to the farms and informal settlements. With this plan we want ordinary women
and children to feel, make sense and find the meaning in the notion of a 'free
society for all' and there is no better place to make an effective start than
our very own municipalities. This plan, honourable members, requires the
dedicated support of all sectors of our society if at all stands a chance of
succeeding.
The provision, location and nature of water and sanitation points, parks,
open spaces, community centres, public transport routes and links, as well as
municipal markets are all critical priorities. These are examples of decisions
we make on a daily basis as government that can have a significant effect, on
the safety and quality of life of women and girl-children. When we develop our
Integrated Development Plans (IDPs), our Local Economic Development (LED)
strategies and our strategic plans we must speak to women and children and ask
them what their needs are.
That simple conversation and consultation with women and children does not
cost much money and can make a big difference in how we plan and implement
projects and ultimately lead to a safer and better quality environment for
communities. If municipalities do not consult on their plans, chances are, they
will experience protests that would otherwise have been avoided had this simple
conversation taken place. On this matter, our Ward Councillors and Ward
Committee members have an important proactive role to play.
Our Ward Committees are not just intended to get government to communicate,
plan and implement better together, but ultimately these plans must be
consulted on and communicated to intended beneficiaries. Ward committees are
critical structures in the facilitation of this communication. We all have a
responsibility to improve our communication with our people. If we do not
communicate with our people, we leave our people vulnerable to all sorts of
negative influences that in turn, create the social gap between government and
its people.
We want to call on our communities: "Use your energies to contribute
positively to the achievements of national priorities, targets and plans." My
call to communities is that we need the passions and energies that you are
displaying, but we need this to be deployed in support of the positive efforts
of your local elected leadership to create a better life for all. Honourable
members, I mentioned this in the National Assembly, but its importance compels
me to mention it once again in this house.
For me, communication is important because it helps us convey good news to
the communities we serve. Equally so, it helps us convey the challenges we
face, the plans we have in place to deal with those challenges, but most
importantly, provides a platform where our communities can air their views and
sometimes even help us find solutions to our problems. By communicating
properly we would have successfully proactively dealt with this devastating
negative public perception that local government is not delivering.
Members will agree with me in saying, very few of these protests are a
reflection of municipalities' incapacity to deliver services, but rather
emanate from this lack of communication, which gives communities a sense that
we are doing nothing because they are not aware of any of our plans. This is
when the people with misleading agendas, wanting to settle political scores
become effective; in fact this is the gap they want to mislead our people. When
people do not know the real truth, it becomes easy for others to bring their
own version of the truth, however misleading it might be; it will do the
damage.
If we don't take this seriously we would be shooting ourselves in the foot. We
once again call upon the NCOP to be very instrumental in narrowing this social
distance between government and its people.
I thank you.
Issued by: Department of Provincial and Local Government
6 June 2007
