Matatiele Municipality from KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) to Eastern Cape (EC)
17 May 2007
The Ministry for Provincial and Local Government will tomorrow, 18 May 2007,
publish for public comment a Bill to amend the Cross-boundary Municipalities
Laws Repeal and Related Matters Act of 2005. The Bill, which will be published
over a period of 30-days is the first step towards correcting a defect in the
legislative and participatory process aimed at correcting boundary anomalies in
KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape.
This process follows a Constitutional Court judgement on 18 August 2006
declaring those provisions of the Constitution Twelfth Amendment Act that
transferred Matatiele Municipality from KwaZulu-Natal to the Eastern Cape
invalid. The Court ruled that the KwaZulu-Natal province failed to facilitate
public participation in the legislative process as required by the
Constitution. It, however, suspended the order of invalidity giving Parliament
18 months to correct the constitutional defect that led to the order of
invalidity.
The Cross-boundary Municipalities Law Repeal and Related Matters Bill will
complement the Constitutional Amendment that will re-affirm the current
cross-boundary arrangements as they are now, maintaining the configuration of
Matatiele as preserved by the court's suspension.
The municipality of Matatiele together with 17 other municipalities that
previously straddled two provinces are a consequence of the negotiations held
at the Convention for a Democratic South Africa (Codesa), which tasked the then
new incoming government to deliberate on the demarcation of boundaries for
municipalities. The dual province municipalities with their complicated
administrative and governance arrangements posed great challenges that stifled
service delivery. These challenges include the implementation across two
provinces of differing legislation pertaining to health and traffic; the
co-ordination of housing and infrastructure projects; the finalisation of
Integrated Development Plans (IDPs) and the differing financial management
systems. The same challenges relate to the integration and cohesion applied to
'municipal islands' that existed between KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern
Cape.
The former cross-boundary municipalities were disestablished and the
'municipal islands' in KZN and EC were re-aligned through the enactment of the
Constitutional Twelfth Amendment Act and the Cross-boundary Municipalities and
Laws Repeal and Related Matters Act, on 1 March 2006. The two acts need to be
amended in order to comply with the Matatiele Constitutional Court judgement.
As a result the Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Development is
processing a separate Constitutional Amendment Bill to amend the former
act.
In managing the overall disestablishment of the former cross-boundary
municipalities, the affected provinces, through co-operation with each other,
have effectively brought all of the former cross-boundary municipalities into
their respective provinces. The affected provinces are Gauteng, Northern Cape,
Mpumalanga, Limpopo, North West, KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape.
Transitional issues associated with the incorporation exercise are being
attended to in order to ensure the continuation of service delivery. To this
end government as a whole has prioritised the former cross boundary areas which
include the re-aligned municipalities in KZN and EC with increased resources
and Municipal Infrastructure Grants (MIG) as well as placing them on the
targeted hands-on support programme Project Consolidate aimed at improving the
capacity of local government to deliver on its mandate.
To date, all the budgets of the former cross-boundary and re-aligned
municipalities have increased over the financial year period of 2004/05 -
2006/07. In the same period, the budget of the Matatiele Local Municipality
increased from R34,7 million to R104,2 million, a staggering increase totalling
R69,5 million.
All the former cross-boundary municipalities have benefited from increases
in their local government equitable share allocations in the 2006/7 financial
year. Matatiele for instance, saw an allocation increase from R4 million in
2005/06 to R18 million for the 2006/07 financial year.
As of April 2007, 81 MIG projects have been located in the former
cross-boundary municipalities, with a total value of R2 billion.
Our preliminary assessment of key institutional matters in the former
cross-boundary municipalities indicate that, overall good progress has been
made with the drafting of Integrated Development Programmes (IDPs), Local
Economic Development (LED) strategies, the filling of section 57 managerial
posts and performance contracts, the deployment of technical expertise and
Community Development Workers (CDWs), and the establishment of ward committees.
However, given that approximately 45% of the total number of councillors are
new, we will re-double our efforts to ensure that these new councillors receive
the required training.
While some progress has been made in the provision of water, sanitation,
electricity, housing, refuse removal, and the eradication of the bucket system,
more effort will be made to deal with these challenges over and above the
existing programmes that are in place. We are committed to eradicating backlogs
in all former cross-boundary areas.
From a financial and institutional point of view, the dplg is gearing up its
existing plans, and together with other national departments, to increase its
support to and in collaboration with provinces.
Lastly, depending on the nature of the comments, an appropriately worded
Bill will be introduced to Parliament. Then it is for Parliament and the
affected Provincial Legislatures to attend to public consultations and
following the prescribed legislative procedures.
Statement by Minister of Provincial and Local Government
Sydney Mufamadi
For more information:
Zandile Ratshitanga
Spokesperson
Ministry for Provincial and Local Government
Cell: 082 460 2041
Issued by: Department of Provincial and Local Government
17 May 2007
Source: Department of Provincial and Local Government (http://www.thedplg.gov.za/)
