Minister for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA), Sicelo Shiceka, told Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs today that the current formula of funding for municipalities is flawed, unsustainable, and requires immediate review if the developmental imperatives of the country are to be met.
“There is a need to review the entire fiscal support system provided to municipalities and there is also a need for members of parliament to engage more robustly with the Fiscal and Financial Commission (FFC). The formula currently being used to fund municipalities is limited and narrow, only taking into account population numbers while ignoring other critical issues like the topography of the area, and this often impacts negatively on the development programmes within municipalities,” said Minister Shiceka.
The Minister was in Parliament to brief the Portfolio Committee on the annual report of the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs for the year 2009/10 financial period.
The Committee noted that significant progress had been made by the department in that CoGTA had been able to move from a qualified audit to and unqualified audit report from the Auditor General in the reported financial period.
“We want to assure the committee and the country at large that we will move even further during this financial year (2010/11) to make sure that even emphasis of matter as well as irregular expenditure are removed from the departmental report,” said Minister Shiceka.
Committee was further briefed on progress that had been made over the past financial year, which included:
- Effective disaster management during the 2010 World Cup.
- Through the implementation of the Local Government Turnaround Strategy (LGTAS), service delivery has started to show improvements with regards to water, sanitation, electricity, roads and community lighting.
“The ability of provinces to monitor the capacity of municipalities to deliver is still a major priority challenge that is being given urgent attention. One of the focal points of assisting municipalities during this year up to 2014 will be to ensure that cooperation between national, provincial and local government is strengthened,” said Minister Shiceka.
On 30 September, Minister Shiceka became the first Minister to sign the delivery agreement with his CoGTA MECs and Mayors on Outcome 9, which has the following seven outputs that the Minister will be measured on:
Output 1: Implement a differentiated approach to municipal financing, planning and support
Output 2: Improving access to basic services
Output 3: Implementation of the Community Work Programme
Output 4: Actions supportive of the human settlement outcome
Output 5: Deepen democracy through a refined Ward Committee Model
Output 6: Administrative and financial capability
Output 7: A single window of coordination
For more information on Outcome 9 go to http://www.cogta.gov.za
At the same briefing, the Director-General for Cooperative Governance (DCoG), Elroy Africa, indicated that systems had been put in place to ensure matters identified as irregular by the AG were dealt with decisively, including taking disciplinary action, as well as putting in place forensic audits.
He further said that significant improvement had been made in expenditure of the Municipal Infrastructure Grant (MIG) as 89% of the R11 billion allocated had been spent while out of the R36,5 billion allocated for disaster management, 98% was spent. “While significant improvement has been made in expenditure of the Municipal Infrastructure Grant, there is room for improvement and more work to be done, and this is being given priority attention,” said Africa.
Enquiries:
Vuyelwa Qinga
Tel: 012 334 0995
Fax: 012 326 4478
Cell: 082 877 3898
E-mail: VuyelwaQ@cogta.gov.za
