Honourable Speaker and Deputy Speaker of the Provincial Legislature
Honourable Mme Maureen Modiselle, Premier of the North West Province
My Colleagues in the Executive Council
Honourable colleagues in the Provincial Legislature
Leaders of the ANC and other political parties
Members of the SALGA Provincial Executive Committee
Dikgosi tsa rona tse di tlotlegang
Our Veteran Mama Ruth Mompati
Executive mayors and mayors of our municipalities
Speakers of our councils
Councillors
Deputy Director-General, Mr Igbal Motala and leaders of administration
Leaders of labour movement
Comrades
Distinguished guests
Ga mmogo le baagi ba Profense ya rona ya Bokone Bophirima le Afrika Borwa ka kakaretso
Introduction
Honorable Speaker, it is my honour to be granted this opportunity to present the budget vote for the newly-reconfigured Department of Local Government and Traditional Affairs. As members of this house are aware, the housing function has been removed from my department and a new Department of Housing has been created to focus on human settlements. The traditional affairs function, which was based in the Office of the Premier, has been transferred to my department in line with the developments at national government level. I am therefore convinced that the two institutions of local government and traditional affairs will benefit a great deal from this arrangement.
This budget vote, Honourable Speaker, comes less than a month after the Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Mr Sicelo Shiceka, described many of South Africa’s municipalities as being in a state of paralysis and dysfunction. The Minister has identified one of the key problems facing our municipalities as what he calls reputation crisis due to the fact that the entire local government sector is perceived to be incompetent, disorganised and riddled with corruption and maladministration.
During several research surveys conducted regarding public perception on spheres of government, local government has always scored the lowest. Even the latest research results point to that sad perception and indicate that the public rating of municipalities in South Africa is at an all time low.
The recent assessment of our municipalities identified the problems that include lack of political/administrative interface, lack of accountability, weak financial management, poor service delivery, allegations of corruption, unsatisfactory labour relations and weak public participation structures. In her State of the Province Address, Premier Maureen Modiselle admitted that we are indeed facing serious credibility crisis in our local government sphere. The Premier also acknowledged that in some instances urgent interventions are needed for some municipalities that are facing total collapse.
Honourable Speaker, it pains my heart to admit that there is indeed lack of good governance in some municipalities and this has resulted in decision paralysis followed by the collapse of administration and service delivery. To compound the problem, there is also an unacceptably high vacancy rate in municipalities, which adversely affect the capacity of our municipalities to deliver service to their communities. For example, by the end of March 2009, eight municipalities had a vacancy rate of Section 57 managers in excess of 30 percent. These are Ditsobotla, which had no permanent Section 57 managers, Madibeng which had half of the personnel it’s supposed to have, Ngaka Modiri Molema with 44 percent of vacant posts, Kgetlengrivier, Ventersdorp, Lekwa Teemane and Naledi each with a 40 percent vacancy rate, and Bojanala with 33 percent.
Our ability to intervene where there is extremely poor governance and administration is limited by the autonomy of municipalities, leaving us with very few options.
The Department of Local Government and Traditional Affairs has a mandate to ensure functional municipalities in the entire province. Municipalities by their nature are a key provider of services to communities ranging from infrastructure to basic services like sanitation and electricity. Without proper functioning municipalities these services will suffer resulting in many problems in many communities.
For the department to discharge its mandate of supporting municipalities and ensuring effective service delivery, it has to be well resourced. But our budget allocation remains inadequate to provide effective support to municipalities. As an example, only R20 million per annum has been allocated to the department since 2005/06 for disaster management support to 25 municipalities. This figure has remained the same over a period of five years despite effects of inflation and other capacity needs. Furthermore, the operational baseline allocation of the department excluding personnel for the current financial year has been slashed by R12,143 million. This will further limit the capacity of the department to effectively support the local sphere of government.
In this regard, I want to draw your attention to the inspirational words of author Wendell Berry, which go as follows, “The past is our definition. We may strive, with good reason, to escape it, or to escape what is bad in it, but we will escape it only by adding something better to it.”
This is the time, Honourable Speaker, to add something better to the bad past we might have had and take decisive steps towards rebuilding our local government sphere to be the better of its past. As Robert Anthony puts it, “the best way to escape from your problem is to solve it.”
We have, therefore, begun to solve the problems we have at our municipalities and we will continue to do so as long as they persist. We have already intervened in Naledi and Ventersdorp by advising respective Councils to deploy acting municipal managers in collaboration with national government to try and stabilise their administrations. Ventersdorp is also among the four municipalities in which we have invoked Section 106 of the Municipal Systems Act to try and investigate all suspicions of fraud, corruption and maladministration.
The other four municipalities were we have intervened by invoking relevant sections of the laws of the republic are Mafikeng, Madibeng, Greater Taung Local Municipalities and Ngaka Modiri Molema District Municipality.
Institutional capacity
Honourable Speaker, since the inception of the democratic local government system in South Africa, our province has identified organisational development as a critical component of transformation at local government level and over the past nine years, we have committed ourselves to assist municipalities with the creation of the necessary institutional capacity.
Last year, we identified institutional audit, policy development, compliance with transformation legislation, skills audit and coordination of training, strengthening of partnerships, hands-on support as well as monitoring of municipalities as part of our commitment to try and build and nurture the necessary capacity in our municipalities and help our municipalities perform their functions in an effective and efficient manner.
I am therefore pleased to announce that over the past year, we have conducted institutional capacity audits in all 25 municipalities on two fronts, one internally by the department and the other jointly with the Municipal Demarcation Board. These audits identified policy development as an area of weakness in many of our municipalities and in this respect we developed 20 generic policies through the legal task team and we have made these available to municipalities for customisation and adoption. Subsequently, municipalities have already adopted 16 of these policies and nine by-laws and we hope this initiative will go a long way in addressing policy vacuum in our municipalities and help create the necessary systems for professional administration in all municipalities.
Our coordinated hands-on support to municipalities resulted in 100 percent compliance with legislation in respect of the submission of employment equity plans to the Department of Labour as well as 95 percent in respect of the workplace skills plans to the Local Government Sector Education and Training Authorities (SETA).
In collaboration with the department of provincial and local government, we have undertaken a skills audit project to all Section 57 managers in all our municipalities. We have also conducted the same audit on other employees in the Merafong Local Municipality as a pilot project and we are rolling out this audit to the rest of the province and hope to complete the whole process by the end of this financial year. This will help us identify the skills gap in our municipal staff across the province and assist us in seeking the necessary interventions that will be put in place to help solve the problem of skills shortage at local government level.
In the meantime, our road shows in struggling municipalities have identified skills shortages among officials and councillors in leadership, management and technical areas and we are already attending to those needs. We have already trained more than 613 officials and 328 councillors as part of trying to address these needs.
Although the department does not have any funds dedicated to training for local government officials, we do provide training to the local government sphere through external funding and in this regard, we have strengthened partnerships with other government institutions. Sadly, there is still a serious lack of project planning capacity in municipalities as reflected by two of our district municipalities Bojanala Platinum and Dr Kenneth Kaunda District Municipalities having been unable to make use of R657 000 each offered by LGSETA for skills development.
In the past financial year, the department implemented the municipal support plan which included a hands-on support in line with the local government strategic agenda. The hands-on support included assistance with the review of organisational structures, investigations, vacancy rate analysis and Integrated Development Planning (IDP) support.
In response to some of the challenges we have been facing on many issues regarding institutional capacity in our municipalities, we will continue to implement the National Capacity Building Framework (NCBF) in conjunction with the local government strategic agenda to deal comprehensively with all areas of capacity challenges. The current joint implementation of the skills audit project of all staff in municipalities will for the first time give us a good idea of the nature of the problem.
We will also strengthen partnerships with funding institutions such as the LGSETA in the training of 500 councillors and 200 officials in leadership, management and technical skills in line with the National Qualifications Framework (NQF).
Lastly, we will implement policy development support with more vigour and make sure that we put more emphases on the outcomes. We will also give hands on support in the filling of the vacancies, review and development of organisational structures as well as in the development of IDP plans.
Municipal service partnership
The department has established a unit to facilitate municipal services partnerships, which started to operate at the end 2008. The unit is supporting municipalities to enter into beneficial partnerships with the private sector and other stakeholders to enhance service delivery, job creation and sustainability. The focus of such partnerships is especially on water, sanitation, electricity and solid waste removal and facilitating infrastructure development.
Last year, 20 municipalities participated in a contract management training that equips officials to manage municipal agreements and better contract administration. Municipalities were also capacitated on facilitating public private partnerships and to date four Public Private Partnership’s initiatives in waste management, water and tourism have been registered.
In addition to these interventions, we have partnered with the Department of Education and Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) to embark on programme to recruit and deploy 51 apprentices and graduates from the FET colleges. These have been deployed in Naledi, Mamusa, Ramotshere Moiloa, Rustenburg, Moses Kotane, Merafong, Madibeng, Mafikeng, and Tlokwe. These artisans come from different backgrounds such as plumbing, civil engineering, fitting and turning, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering and water care.
Among these are six water care graduates that have been placed on a one year contract at municipalities where they have been receiving practical training in water care management. Magalies Water has already absorbed some of them and some municipalities have shown similar interest.
The objective of the programme is to expose the candidates to the working environment so that they can acquire experience to qualify as artisans, while assisting municipalities with operations and maintenance of plants, equipment and infrastructure.
The department has also received 11 experts from the DBSA’s Siyenza Manje Programme and they have been deployed to assist in Merafong, Greater Taung, Naledi, Tswaing, Kgetlengrivier, Ventersdorp, Moretele and Moses Kotane to address service delivery backlogs. Three of these have vast experience in finance while eight are engineers.
These technical experts have already managed 144 projects in the province, thus facilitating MIG allocation, excluding capex, of over R437 million from 2007/08. The total Municipal Infrastructure Grant (MIG) expenditure for 2008/09 in the towns where they were deployed rose from an average 67 percent the previous year to 81 percent in the 2008/09 financial year. Through their interventions, the Dr Ruth Segomotsi Mompati, which was reported to be the non-performing municipality in the province has improved in MIG spending from 40 percent in the 2007/08 financial year to 93 percent in the 2008/09 financial year.
Public participation
Honourable Speaker, the Freedom Charter adopted in 1955 emphasise that, the people shall govern. The ANC led government continues to ensure that indeed the people are governing.
In line with good governance and transparency, we are in an ongoing process of enhancing our public participation programme in all our municipalities.
In the previous financial year, we made commitments which included assisting and supporting municipalities to resuscitate or re-establish non-functional ward committees. We also committed ourselves to monitor and support municipalities to promote and enhance functionality of ward committees and to promote and maintain harmonious working relationships between ward committees and CDWs including coordinating their roles and responsibilities.
Furthermore, we committed ourselves to promoting the adoption and implementation of the community-based planning (CBP) or local area planning (LAP) systems by municipalities to effectively coordinate and institutionalise key Batho Pele principles of consultation and redress community complaints through the complaints management systems.
Our hard work in this regard has yielded positive results in many of our targets. We have established all ward committees and re-established the collapsed ones except one in Maquassi Hills which is currently receiving attention.
Honourable Speaker, we did not only establish ward committees, but we also provided the necessary support to municipalities towards enhancing their functionality and to this end, we estimate that 70 percent of ward committees in the province are functional. Unfortunately, this figure was derived from the 15 municipalities that have complied with the statutory reporting obligation to the MEC regarding the state of ward committees. Six of the municipalities have failed to report on the state of their ward committees.
However, the department has coordinated and monitored all public participation initiatives and this included random attendance of ward committee meetings. We have also facilitated the establishment of local ward committee coordinating forums and eight out of 21 of these have been formed. Auditing of ward committees records has been done for 250 of the 365 wards in all our local municipalities.
The training for ward committees promised by LGSETA and former Department of Provincial Local Government (DPLG) in 2006, which was delayed due to problems with accreditation of service providers, will start soon as these problems have since been sorted out. The training for ward committees promised by LGSETA and former DPLG in 2006, which was delayed due to problems with accreditation of service providers, will start soon as these problems have since been sorted out.
Fifteen out of 21 local municipalities have spent some of the R15 000 allocated to each ward committee while there is zero expenditure by six municipalities. By the end of April 2009, Rustenburg, Kgetlengrivier, Mafikeng, Naledi, Matlosana, and Merafong had not spent a cent of this money.
This money comes as a grant, included in the Municipal Systems Improvement Grant (MISG) funding for local municipalities by the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs. Although municipalities were urged to ensure 100 percent spending before the end of their current financial year, some have failed to comply and their own systems seem to be the problem.
We have further conducted relationship building educational workshops for the committee members and CDWs in six municipalities. All local municipalities except four in the Dr Kenneth Kaunda District Municipality have adopted the community-based planning (CBP) or Local Area Planning (LAP) systems and implementation is on course.
I take this opportunity to thank the Independent Development Trust (IDT) for giving local municipalities within the Ngaka Modiri Molema district capacity building support for the implementation of the LAP system. The district municipality has since completed 32 out of 89 LAP ward plans.
The Community Development Workers (CDWs) continue to make a difference in the lives of the communities in the province. Over the past year, they have registered 65 877 cases, resolved 55 298 of them and have 10 579 cases still pending on various issues. We have been able to develop an electronic monitoring system which will serve as management tool to develop trends and help sector departments to identify appropriate interventions timeously.
To build up on a baseline for municipalities and sector departments’ planning purposes utilising the CDWs services, we intend to engage a province-wide household survey to profile all the indigent households.
The complaints handling system is being implemented and 16 of the 25 municipalities have submitted reports to the MEC in compliance with statutory obligations. This system is applied manually by almost all municipalities except Madibeng, Moses Kotane and Rustenburg which have computerised it. Generally, the system is working although most municipalities still do not have dedicated officials to do proper and timeous reporting.
While our public participation programme has yielded positive results, we still face challenges that include lack of proper office infrastructure for ward committees, lack of programme funding by the province and municipalities to support public participation, poor planning, ineffective implementation of the complaints handling systems in some municipalities as well as poor community feedback from some municipalities. The department intend intensifying monitoring and hands-on systems towards improving this situation.
Integrated planning
We are making great strides towards capacitating municipalities to carry out their mandate by promoting integrated development at our municipalities. All our municipalities have submitted their IDP Process Plans for the 2009/10 financial year. We have also established a Provincial development and Planning Forum to strengthen coordination in planning. Only Kgetlengrivier municipality could not table its 2009/10 draft IDP to the council for adoption by 31 March 2009 and the rest of the municipalities managed to do this. IDPs from 23 municipalities have already been assessed by the sector departments.
Municipal finance
Honourable Speaker, the department continues to strive for the improvement of financial management and administration as well as improved financial accountability and stability in our municipalities. We also continue to monitor the financial performance of municipalities to help them where there are challenges. I must hasten to say, though, that while there is very minimal improvement in some municipalities, there is no progress at all in certain municipalities.
Consequently, I must admit that financial administration in our municipalities is still a challenge that will take sometime to address. There is still high vacancy level in the budget and treasury offices of our municipalities and a low level of in-house financial skills. Skills retention in our municipalities is still a challenge and so is timeous filling of vacant posts. For example, Mamusa is without a CFO since May 2006. Ditsobotla has been without a CFO since April 2008 while Matlosana has been without a CFO since August 2008. The Dr Kenneth Kaunda municipality has been without a CFO since February this year. In Naledi, the CFO and corporate services posts were combined and an official with no financial qualifications was appointed, meaning therefore that the municipality is functioning without a qualified CFO since February 2008.
Although 24 of our municipalities submitted their financial statements for 2007/08 financial year, only 18 of them submitted these by 31 August 2008 as prescribed by the Municipal Finance Management Act (MFMA). The other six submitted by 31 December 2008. The Ditsobotla Municipality only submitted its financial statements for 2006/07 at the end of March 2009 and the municipality has made a commitment to submit the 2007/08 financial statements at the end of this month. The Auditor-General’s audit for 2007/08 financial year arrived at five unqualified audit opinions, four qualified opinions, 11 disclaimers and one adverse opinion.
By 30 of April this year, the total debt owed to municipalities was over R4,1 billion, and the debtors included residents and government institutions. It is however not possible at this point to determine the amounts owed by government departments as the financial system at most municipalities categorises service fields and not service users.
Although we have successfully negotiated with the Department of Public Works and other sectors to settle their debts, the amount of R58,6 million that has been paid to municipalities through this initiative is a drop in the ocean. More efforts must be made to resolve this problem and municipalities must lead in this regard.
While municipalities struggle to collect their revenue, they are simultaneously faced with increasing salary bills. In some instances the salary bill consumes up the 80 percent of the revenue of our municipalities, although, as I have already said, this is drawn from a fraction of what the municipalities should be collecting.
One of the sources of revenue that municipalities are currently implementing is the property rates. The cut off date for the implementation of the Municipal Property Rates Act of 2004 was the beginning of this month, yet only three municipalities have implemented the Act since July 2006. Eighteen municipalities have been slow in implementing this Act and they have only started implementing it this month, that is, at its final stage.
We estimate that property rates will contribute between 16 percent and 45 percent to the own income generated by municipalities. It is therefore important that municipalities comply with all the provisions of the Municipal Property Rates Act to ensure a smooth implementation and to protect a very important source of revenue.
As this is a national process, the challenges faced by the municipalities then become a matter of national concern. In the light of this, the Department and the Ministry of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs have embarked on a process of intervention to ensure that the municipalities start to implement within a reasonable time frame during this financial year. The intervention will also ensure that the municipalities do not forfeit the much needed revenue derived from property rates.
The main challenge on the implementation of the act has been the funding of the compilation of the valuation rolls of municipalities. Most of the smaller municipalities were not in a financial position to fund the process on their own and therefore relied on the support from the province. The department managed to make an amount of R1,5 million available through the adjustment budget to Ventersdorp to support them financially with the process. The department also negotiated grants through the DBSA to Maquassi Hills, Naledi, and Lekwa Teemane local municipalities which got R998 000, R1,3 million and R1,275 million, respectively.
The funding for this process was further allocated a portion of the Municipal Systems Improvement Grant (MSIG) in the 2008/09 budget, which was R18 550 million for 23 municipalities. Only R5 290 million of this amount was allocated to assist municipalities with the Municipal Property Rates Act (MPRA) process. The remaining amount was shared between ward committee administration and compilation of Asset registers. I should also mention that for the 2009/10 financial year municipalities have been allocated R22 720 million from the MSIG. We are currently negotiating with the DBSA and the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs to increase this allocation.
Disaster management
Honourable Speaker, there is no doubt that our investment in disaster management is now yielding positive results. Year in year out our province has been experiencing natural disasters and our government has managed to deal with them successfully to reduce their negative impact on citizens.
The province experienced a major disaster at Marikana in Rustenburg Local Municipality in November last year, in which close to 1000 houses and shacks were destroyed and the lives of thousands of our people disrupted.
The Rustenburg Local Municipality disaster management centre supported by the district and the provincial disaster management centre was able to organise sector departments such as the Departments of Health, Social Development, South African Social Security Agency, South African Police Service, Lonmin Rescue and Faith-based organisations such as the South African Council of Churches and Zinniaville Muslim Community to bring relief to those affected by the disaster.
This kind of integrated coordination and synergistic partnership is echoed within the Disaster Management Act of 2002 and the National Disaster Management Policy Framework of 2005. As a result of this commitment, we managed to restore the people’s lives back to normality within three months.
As we have always been doing every year, we continued to beef up our local disaster management centres by providing financial support to various municipalities to upgrade their fire brigade services and improve the municipal disaster management centres.
The Merafong and Ventersdorp municipalities received fire vehicles worth R5,5 million and R2 million, respectively. The Rustenburg Municipality received R11 million for the upgrading of its fire services and each of the four district municipalities received R2 million for disaster management in their respective areas of jurisdiction.
This year we will provide support to Matlosana, Kagisano, Ramotshere Moiloa Local Municipalities to upgrade and improve their Fire Brigade Services.
We will also provide support to district municipalities to complete phase two of their disaster management plans and implement the awareness creation programmes as well as improve their disaster management centres.
We are, however, still striving towards the establishment of a fully functional provincial disaster management centre with a full staff complement as prescribed by the Disaster Management Act 2002 and National Disaster Management Policy Framework. We are also working towards ensuring that municipalities and sector departments prioritise disaster management and fire services functions and alleviate capacity constraints on both disaster management and fire services at local government level.
Municipal free basic services
Honourable Speaker, we have made great strides towards the provision of free basic services to our communities. Twenty of our local municipalities have completed and implemented indigent policies. We have also established the North West provincial energy forum and the district energy forums and embarked on joint awareness campaigns for indigents to access free basic energy. This has led to the electrification of 8000 households through the grant Eskom provided to municipalities.
In the past two financial years, the department entered into a partnership with the DBSA in order to provide both financial and technical support to six identified water service authorities to eradicate the water and sanitation backlogs in the province. Municipalities that benefited from this assistance are Dr Ruth Segomotsi Mompati, Maquassi Hills, Moretele, Madibeng, Moses Kotane and Kgetlengrivier.
Currently, 137 439 out of the 440 773 indigent households spread across our municipality are provided with free basic electricity. Another 303 124 indigent households out of 434 593 are served with free basic water. Our objective is to provide every indigent household with free basic services in the not too distant future.
Although there is huge progress in the provision of municipal free basic services to communities, I must point out that communication to beneficiaries, record keeping and documentation and management thereof are still very poor due to the lack of dedicated staff to deal with free basic services at municipalities.
Municipal infrastructure grant
Honourable Speaker, we are gradually making an impact in the provision of municipal infrastructure to our communities and we hope to continue to do so in the coming year.
Our study has however revealed that we still have a lot do to address the backlog. We still have a R723 million water backlog and a R3,3 billion sanitation backlog.
The total budget allocated to municipalities through the 2008/09 Municipal Infrastructure Grant (MIG) was 9 percent lower than the grant for the previous financial year. This might be attributed to the unspent funds that were rolled over in some municipalities.
During the 2007/08 financial year, our province received over R784 million for municipal infrastructure. This was combined with about R92 million roll over from the previous year. Our municipalities spent about R599,2 million and there was a remainder of almost R183 million that the municipalities could not spend. The overall expenditure was therefore 76 percent.
During 2008/09 financial year, our municipalities received almost R714 million. This was combined with the R183 million roll over from the previous year. Our municipalities managed to spend about R581 million and there was a remainder of over R129 million that municipalities could not spend. The overall expenditure is therefore 82 percent. This is an increase of 6 percent from the expenditure of the previous year, a slight achievement indeed.
There were 23 municipalities that received MIG funding in 2007/08 and 2008/09 financial years, but only eight of them managed to spend 100 percent by the end of the financial year.
Despite the department’s continued support and interventions to individual municipalities, the challenges on MIG expenditure still persist and these relate to the high turnover of Project Management Unit (PMU) technical staff, change of priority projects and procurement delays.
The department will be striving to capacitate local municipalities to reach 100 percent expenditure on MIG, but also ensure that acceptable work is done to the required standards. This year, our municipalities will share a total amount of R892,574 million for municipal infrastructure. We will this financial year strengthen our departmental MIG unit to ensure that we drastically reduce the MIG rollover.
Traditional affairs
Honourable Speaker, as this house may be aware, the term of office of the current members of the Provincial House of Traditional Leaders should have come to an end with the term of the Legislature in April this year. This did not happen because the provincial legislation has not yet accommodated new developments within the institution of traditional leadership.
We will be tabling before this house a bill which will address a variety of issues, the most important of which is the synchronisation of the term of office of the provincial house with that of the national and other houses in the country. The bill will also address the composition of the provincial house in line with the local government demarcations and provide for the development of regulations to manage the operations of the institution.
I had the opportunity to meet with the leadership of the Provincial House of Traditional Leaders and we have discussed this matter in detail. They have also briefed me on the matters that need urgent attention and the support that dikgosi require from the provincial government.
Allow me to reiterate, therefore, what has already been said by the President, the Minister and the premier that it is imperative for dikgosi and government to work together to make sure that our commitment yield positive results. Motsogapele o re rutile gore “mabogo dinku a thebana, e bile moroto wa o esi ga o elele.”
For this to happen, Honorable Speaker, we need to continue paying attention to the empowerment and resourcing of this institution of Bogosi. We can’t expect Bogosi to play a meaningful role in the development and empowerment of our rural communities when they don’t have the means to do so.
Keka jalo Mmusa Kgotla, re le puso ya Bokone Bophirima, re dira go tlala seatla go netefatsa gore bogosi bo a tlhokomelwa. Tlhokomelo e, tsepane e bile e akaretsa sengwe le sengwe se bogosi bo se tlhokang go tsweletsa merafe ya rona pele. Go akaretsa go aga diofisi tse di tshwanelang tiro e dikgosi tsa rona di e dirang, ditlamakelo le didiriswa tsa tsona, matlotlo a go thusa ka tsamaiso, mafaratlhatlha a se gompieno jaaka Dikomphiotara, jalo le jalo. Se re se dira go dira gore tiro ya dikgosi le dikansele tsa bona e nne botlhofo le bonako. Kana noka e tladiwa ke melatswana. Sejo sennye ga se fete molomo.
Our dikgosi have previously raised a concern regarding lack of vehicles for use by the staff in their traditional authorities. The concern was genuine and we have taken it seriously and we will be purchasing vehicles for those traditional councils who are unable to do so for themselves. These vehicles will be used solely for official matters and we will develop a policy on how they will be used and managed.
Honourable Speaker, it is regretted that this institution continues to experience instability in some communities, particularly those communities with mineral deposits. Instead of these resources contributing to the development and upliftment of these communities, they have brought in divisions and other unnecessary problems.
The provincial government had to intervene to bring about stability. Just to mention a few, we have experienced instability in Moruleng, Tlhatlaganyane, Bodibe and Bapong. In some instances, we were forced to take over administration of those traditional authorities and appoint our administrators. These administrators have already recorded some successes in bringing in stability and renegotiating mining deals for these communities.
In the past year alone, we had to establish two independent judicial commissions of inquiry to deal with traditional leadership dispute within the Bahurutshe ba ga Moiloa and the Batlhako ba Leema traditional authorities. These commissions are currently underway and we will pronounce on the findings during the year. There are many disputes that were lodged with us which were forwarded to the National Commission and unfortunately there is no progress yet on those disputes.
On a positive note, Honourable Speaker, the Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Leadership has announced that provinces will be given the powers to establish their own commissions of traditional leadership disputes. As a province we welcome this decision because we are sure it will assist us in resolving all outstanding disputes.
While dikgosi are prepared and ready to serve in our municipalities, they are concerned about the treatment that they get from some municipalities. These concerns range from lack of training, lack of participation in municipal committees, and disparities in their allowances. My department and the South African Local Government Association (SALGA) have embarked in a desk top study to look into these concerns with the aim of coming up with an amicable solution to the problem.
SALGA NW is keen to address challenges faced by dikgosi in the North West by signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with dikgosi. This memorandum will have to be cascaded down to municipal level. At municipal level the MoU will deal with bread and butter matters of rural communities, for example matters around land use, communication and service delivery.
Let me take this opportunity to congratulate all dikgosi who have been recently appointed by their respective Royal families and recognized by the provincial government and I want to assure them of our support. Amongst them are Kgosi Motheo Mamogale of Bakwena ba Mogopa, Kgosi Maselwane of Bakwena ba Mmatau and Kgosi Moefi Mabalane of Baphiring. Bagaetsho Kgosi e a tsalwa ga e tlhopiwe. Bogosi ga se letsoku gab o itshasiwe. Ka jalo re tlile go netefatsa seo re le lefapha.
Let me also pay tribute to those dikgosi who have parted with this world to join our ancestors. They are our fallen heroes and heroines and their contribution to the development of their communities is recognized and appreciated. Let me humbly request the affected royal families to speed up the process of handing over the button. History has taught us that the delay in filling in these vacancies creates uncertainty.
It sometimes even leads to divisions within the royal family and amongst the community. These divisions sometime end up in the Courts of Law. Amongst those departed is Kgosigadi T Maimane. May her soul rest in peace. Kgosi Mmmusi Letlhogile le ene re morapelela gore a fole a kgone go tsweletsa tiro ya gagwe pele.
Honourable Speaker, it is my pleasure to present the full budget of the Department of Local Government and Traditional Affairs.
The proposed budget of the department is as follows:
Budget per programme:
- Administration: 47 675
- Local governance: 74 144
- Development and planning: 97 851
- Traditional leaders: 71 168
- Total: 290 838
Budget per economic classification:
- Personnel: 162 723
- Transfers: 82 440
- Administrative: 14 899
- Stores: 2 847
- Professional Services: 7 380
- Goods and services: 9 294
- Equipment: 4 255
- Land and buildings: 7 000
- Total: 290 838
Conclusion
In conclusion, Honourable Speaker, Warburton points out that governance is a very important concept in the first decade of the 21st century. A wide variety of nations, organisations, institutions and individuals are grappling with how best they can be governed. For multi-national corporations, developing countries, governments or institutions, the practice of good governance is increasingly seen as critical for ensuring that the governance of organisation both public and private has a legal and ethical basis, that decisions are taken in the interests of stakeholders and that the organisation behaves as good corporate citizens. The department is committed to ensure that there is good governance within itself, in all municipalities and traditional leadership institutions.
The President of the African National Congress (ANC) and the Republic, Comrade Jacob Zuma when concluding his presentation of the ANC manifesto said, “We are committed to a service delivery culture that will put every elected official and public servant to work for our people.” Le us not disappoint him.
Dikgosi tsa gaetsho, bomajoro ba rona le baagi ka kakaretso fa re ka tshwaragana ra dira mmogo re ka kgona go le gontsintsi.
Acknowledgement
Honourable Speaker let me conclude by thanking the African National Congress and the Premier, comrade Maureen for showing confidence in me. My colleagues in Executive Council, Chairperson of the Committee and Members of the Legislature continue to contribute to my success. I would like to give my appreciation to the Head of the Department, management and the entire staff for their valuable contributions and hard work during this challenging period. I also thank my family for encouragement and support.
Modimo o mogolo!
Ke a leboga!
A pula ene!
