Executive mayors
Council speakers
Chief whips
Councillors from various municipalities
Members of the provincial Executive Committee (SALGA-Gauteng)
Representatives of the SALGA National Executive Committee
Ladies and gentlemen
Today marks a start of an important constitutional gathering in the calendar of this organisation. Like all other formations, this gathering affords an opportunity for SALGA-Gauteng to reflect on progress made in relation to programmes adopted for implementation, but equally it presents an opportunity for the leadership in the province to account to its members on the mandate given to them to represent the interest of local government.
It is our hope as we gather here to witness the success of this gathering that you will be able to emerge more determined in your endeavours to make local government work better. We are also here today to reaffirm our commitment and belief that indeed local government is everybody's business.
We are here today to reaffirm our commitment as the provincial government that in the context of cooperative governance, working with SALGA-Gauteng we can shoulder the responsibility to make local government an embodiment of developmental aspirations of our local communities.
I also bring with me best wishes from the premier who could not be able to make it to this event because of other important commitments. We also want to take this opportunity to bring to the attention of your member municipalities some of the pertinent issues confronting local government in this current period.
We want to place these issues before this PMA so as to contribute in shaping the debates to take place over the next two days and equally make sure that our responses to those issues shape a programmatic approach for the remaining term of local government.
We also raise these issues mindful of the fact that this period leading to the end of the term will be very critical in defining the success of this term of local government.
Last year's national and provincial elections have given birth to a set of development priorities. Whilst not new, the approach and pace in delivering on these priorities however, is expected to change to a higher gear.
Thus, the question we must consider and respond to during our discussions is whether we have been able to ensure that our municipalities adopt plans that are consistent with these set of priorities.
These set of national and provincial priorities have placed an added responsibility on local government as the cutting edge of sustainable service delivery to local communities. They demand that municipalities should rethink their approach to service delivery, devise new methods and techniques in accelerating service delivery.
Your role as SALGA, in as far as supporting municipalities in realising these priorities is also brought into question. The expectation is that SALGA, whose primary responsibility is to represent the interest of local government, must its role and claim its space as the organised formation of local government.
There will be no other way of claiming your space as SALGA than to make sure that you become a more formidable and vocal voice championing the interest of local government and further mobilise the necessary resource in support of local government.
We have also witnessed over the past months an emergence of service delivery protests around Gauteng. These protests have also been targeted towards ward councillors, council property and basic public amenities and we have seen certain councillor's properties being damaged and some councillors being assaulted by certain elements within communities.
Whilst reasons for these protests differ from one municipality to the other, there are however certain issues we would like to put forward for consideration by the PMA and these are the following:
* We need to think more creatively about new approaches to close the gap between government and our local communities on issues of development.
* How do we reaffirm the place and role of local leadership especially local Councillors when it comes to issues of local development?
* Do we have enough support mechanism to support local Councillors when discharging their responsibilities?
* How do we strengthen our complaints and petitions management in municipalities?
* How do we effectively coordinate the work of all spheres of governments in the local developmental space, so as to ensure that we have a collective and government wide response to local challenges?
* Lastly how do we build our monitoring and evaluation capacity in municipalities so as to closely monitor service delivery but equally be able to build this capacity as an early warning tool?
As SALGA, it is also important that in the interest of your member municipalities including councillors, you strongly take a firm stand in condemning the violent nature of these unrests and calling upon the law enforcement agencies to deal with such violent elements in our communities.
We must equally be firm in making our communities understand that no amount of violence either against council property or physical harm to our councillors would make their demands realised.
Where a need arises that we engage with aggrieved communities, your members must always be willing to do that. In cases where communities raise genuine concerns and frustration about the pace of service delivery, we must move swiftly to address that.
I also wish to call upon SALGA to speak against councillors who may be neglecting their responsibility towards their communities. As SALGA you are expected to make sure that you monitor the extent to which municipalities through their councillors are always at the service of their local communities.
I also wish to commit my department to working closely with all municipalities including SALGA in making sure that municipalities are supported in all attempts to accelerate the pace of service delivery to communities.
We have recently launched a provincial framework on the local government turnaround strategy (LGTAS). The Gauteng Executive Council has also approved the framework and the implementation plan for the province and municipalities.
You may also be aware that our senior departmental officials are busy engaging with municipalities in making sure that they adopt their municipal specific turnaround strategies with implementation plans.
I wish to call upon all municipalities to support this task and further make sure it receives the necessary support and resources required to make it a reality.
It is therefore a challenge to SALGA also to make sure that it takes this opportunity presented by the adoption and implementation of the LGTAS that it lobbies for the necessary and required support from both provincial and national government for the benefit of its members.
That will only be possible if SALGA becomes an active participant in the processes that are taking place in the province. I therefore wish to take this opportunity to challenge the PMA to consider carefully its role and approach in working with the provincial government and other stakeholders in making sure that the implementation of the LGTAS becomes a success.
Our approach to the success of the implementation of the LGTAS is the growing appreciation that the success of a local developmental state does not lie in controlling implementation from the centre but in creating coherent and accountable local institutions with clear and coherent understanding of the their developmental responsibilities.
We therefore wish to reaffirm our belief that solutions to problems experienced by municipalities that make it difficult to accelerate service delivery lies with municipalities themselves. We must find local solutions to our local problems working in collaboration with other spheres of government and other stakeholders.
The LGTAS affords us an opportunity to turn things around in our municipalities. Important amongst those is the restoration of credibility and integrity of local municipalities as important drivers of provision of services to communities.
The state of the local government report which was also presented to the Executive Council which also had valuable inputs from all municipalities in the province identified a number of challenges faced by municipalities.
These challenges range from institutional inefficiencies, low financial or revenue base and poor financial management, poor relations between administrative and political arms of municipalities, lack of skilled technical personnel to drive service delivery and low levels of good governance practices and public participation.
The report however, does acknowledge the good practices that exist in some municipalities which form the basis of a set of good practices for the municipalities in the province.
Our intervention through the LGTAS seeks to respond to all those challenges and problems but equally strengthen those areas where we have seen elements of good practices.
Our approach to implementation of the LGTAS will also attempt to take stock of previous support programmes undertaken by the provincial and national government over the past period.
This will assist us in making sure that we learn valuable lessons and we don't repeat the mistakes committed in the past when undertaking similar strategies to support municipalities.
One of the important questions this PMA must deal with is: how we rethink our approach in supporting municipalities? With the kinds of intervention that we undertook in the past, some did not yield positive results and therefore collectively we ask the difficult question of what we can do differently in our approach this time to turn things around.
One of the important aspects I want to place before this PMA is how we collectively take ownership of turning around our municipalities. The success of this project lies with us collectively taking ownership as partners in local government and equally taking our full responsibility to make this strategy a success.
This also speaks to one of the issues as SALGA you must continue to work hard to improve, strengthening your working relations with other spheres of government and public institutions and private partners to mobilise the necessary resources to support municipalities.
The other issue I wish to place before the PMA is a need to begin to rethink about your approach and role as SALGA in the intergovernmental relations structures in the province. Key to the success of the implementation of the LGTAS is a very strong and viable institutional framework on inter-governmental relations (IGR).
It is my submission to this PMA that as SALGA you have not been able to make use of your presence in the IGR structures in the province to represent the interests of local government, instead issues of programme and policy have been left to individual municipalities to engage for themselves and this to the detriment of smaller municipalities.
As we continue to strive for between intergovernmental relations, we must ensure that we define the most strategic issues that must always inform the basis of our participation in the IGR structures for the benefit of local government.
In the context of cooperative governance together with you, we can be able to place Gauteng at a better place in meeting its developmental challenges. This starts with all of us appreciating the need to work together in improving the lives of our local communities.
Lastly, I wish to take this opportunity to wish you success in your conference and hope that discussions will assist in making sure that as we prepare to finish the current term of local government but equally we begin to think about the kinds of issues we must begin to do differently as we approach a new term of local government, informed by our strategic perspective to make local government work better.
I thank you.
Issued by: Department of Local Government and Housing, Gauteng Provincial Government
15 April 2010
Source: Gauteng Provincial Government (http://www.gautengonline.gov.za/)
