Deputy Minister Andries Nel undertakes oversight visit to North West, 30 May to 1 Jun

30 May 2018

CoGTA visit to North West Province in support of interventions in distressed municipalities

The Ministry of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA) will undertake an oversight visit to Ngaka Modiri Molema and Dr Ruth Segomotsi Mompati District Municipalities in the North West (NW) Province, on 31 May and 01 June 2018 as part of the Back to Basics programme of supporting municipalities in distress in order to effect turnarounds.

The visit to Mahikeng in Ngaka Modiri Molema will be led by Deputy Minister Andries Nel and will take place on the 31st of May and that to Mamusa Municipality at Ruth Mogomotsi Mompati Municipality will be led by Minister Zweli Mkhize and will take place on the 1st of June. The visit to Ngaka Modiri Molema District will cover three municipalities, Mahikeng, Ramotsere Moiloa and Ratlou.

Meetings will be held with the provincial leadership, including the MEC for Cooperative Governance and Human Settlements Ms Fenny Gaolaolwe, the mayors of the municipalities, the Provincial House of Traditional Leaders as well as key stakeholders such as North West University.

Cabinet resolved to invoke section 100(1) in the North West Province and established an Inter-Ministerial Task Team constituted of several Ministers to assess the challenges facing the province.

The visit by CoGTA is also informed by engagements with MECs responsible for local government and traditional affairs in March 2018, whereby it was agreed that provinces must focus on municipalities categorised as financially distressed/dysfunctional. These are municipalities that are struggling to deliver services to their communities due to collapse of their governance and financial systems. The priority areas agreed upon with the MECs are in finances, governance and service delivery mandates undertaken by the municipalities which are showing a dysfunctional state.

The national CoGTA will work with the provincial government to provide support aimed at effecting turnarounds of the ailing municipalities.

The support to municipalities is clustered into three focus areas, which are:

Governance and Administration: focusing on audit outcomes; unauthorised, irregular and fruitless and wasteful expenditure; internal control and oversight environment; filling of critical senior managers positions in compliance with the applicable regulatory framework; implementation of forensic reports that were conducted previously, that also included the conducting investigations in terms of section 106 of the Municipal Systems Act, 2000; strengthening of political and administrative interface; quality of political leadership and institutionalisation of the Code of Conduct for Councillors and Officials as provided for in schedule 1 and 2 of the Municipal Systems Act, 2000, in order to address accountability and consequence management, amongst others.
Service delivery and Infrastructure: Infrastructure planning, delivery and implementation management; priority action plans for Water Service Authorities to address operational vulnerabilities, including maintenance and refurbishment; resolve roles and responsibilities between district and local municipalities with respect to the water and sanitation function by reviewing the existing but weak Service Level Agreements and interventions to accelerate Municipal Infrastructure Grant.
Financial management: focusing on budget management, cash-flow controls, debtor management, revenue enhancement and development of financial recovery plans.

Twelve priority municipalities have been identified in North West and are as follows: