M Shilowa: South African Local Government Association Gauteng's Members
Assembly

13 September 2007

Programme Director
The National Chairperson of South African Local Government Association
(Salga)
Mayor Amos Masondo
The chairperson of Salga - Gauteng, Mayor Duma Nkosi
Executive Members of Salga - Gauteng
Members of the Salga - Gauteng assembly
Guests, ladies and gentlemen

It is once more an honour and a privilege to have been invited to be part of
the opening of your annual members' assembly in Gauteng this year. We have
observed before that the importance of local government derives largely from
its position as the critical interface between the government service delivery
system and the people. It is with this understanding of the importance of local
government that we have to tackle the challenge of halving poverty and
unemployment and underdevelopment by 2014.

This assembly takes place in an environment polluted by what is termed
service delivery protests. Although these protests are happening in only a
handful of our wards, and involve only a minority of citizens, they have
created hysteria because of the orchestrated violence accompanying them. Last
week, the extended executive council, which included MECs and mayors from all
municipalities, discussed and affirmed the right of citizens to protest. We
have however the violence that accompanied these protests deplorable and
deserving of strong condemnation.

This period calls for strong leadership and we have agreed that violent
protests would not enable a group or community to 'jump the service delivery
queue' or enable one community to be given preference over another community in
the rollout of housing and other facilities and infrastructure. Nor would
violent protests by particular groups prevent the implementation of development
projects aimed at improving the community as a whole.

We need to work together as the national, the provincial and local
government to deal comprehensively deal with the issues raised in the protests
and stamp out the violence.

Critical areas that need immediate attention include the improvement of
communication across the three spheres of government and effective
co-ordination in responding to all the key issues raised by our
communities.

Ward councillors often bear the brunt of violence during these protest and
we need to improve the capacity to function effectively within their wards.
This includes providing them with information about the planned developments in
their wards and progress reports to enable them to provide regular feedback to
communities.

Ward committees and community development workers will also need to be
empowered to address community concerns and grievances long before they turn
into violence.

Over a year ago, as municipalities and the provincial government we agreed
on a strategy to build Gauteng as an integrated, globally competitive city
region. We identified as a priority the need to create conditions for a single
metropolitan system of governance in Gauteng and reviewing powers and functions
of various spheres of government to improve service delivery.

We are now working on the completion of a proposal on the establishment of a
metropolitan system of governance which will be discussed the Premier's
Co-ordination Forum before it is submitted to the Demarcation Board this
year.

While this process continues we have agreed to explore twinning arrangements
between our metros and regional municipalities. This will allow for a sharing
of knowledge, expertise, support and improved service delivery. The Tshwane
Metro and Metsweding will pilot this system and lessons drawn from this pilot
will be used to identify areas co-operation and support between the two other
metros and regional municipalities.

I must emphasise though that these twinning arrangements must be based on
mutual benefit. We must be guided by an understanding that regional
municipalities have areas of excellence from which metros can learn and metros
also have well developed expertise that they can share with regional
municipalities.

Programme director, the need to deepen democracy and accountability can not
be over-emphasised. Last month we launched the municipal public accounts
committees in all municipalities. These committees are not intended to replace
mayor councils or to determine budgets. They are intended to improve oversight
and accountability and ensure that the public finances are used for purpose
intended.

We however must also boost public participation in the development of
Integrated Development Plans and ensure that we manage expectations that can be
created by this process. Councillors must increase their visibility in their
wards. They must be seen to be building ward-level democracy and broadening
public participation in democracy.

We are beginning to see the negative impact of rapid urbanisation and
in-migration on social fabric of province. our population has now reach 9,6
million according to the mid-2007 estimates by Statistic South Africa. The
impact of have that number of people occupying just 1,4% of the country's land
area can be seen incidents of substance abuse, violent social crime, teen
pregnancies, the abuse of women, children, the elderly and people with
disabilities.

We need to discuss and come up with a framework of social cohesion measures
and an action plan to promote moral regeneration, instil parenting skills and
improve gender relations. We must also develop integrated poverty alleviation
strategies to ensure maximum impact on the poor and align provincial and local
government strategies to build social development, cohesion and
inclusion.
One of our key challenges is in building sustainable human settlements. This is
an area that organisers of protests find easy to exploit. In 2004 we identified
informal settlements that needed to be formalised and or upgraded. We now
require a review of progress made to fulfil this commitment. But while we do
that we will need to fast-tract the rollout of basic services such as water,
sanitation, and electricity.

The negative consequences of rapid urbanisation are also beginning to be
felt by communities through power supply disruptions and environmental
degradation. Together we must investigate common approaches to energy
efficiency, the sustainable use of non-renewable energy sources, alternative
energy sources, waste management, greening and carbon credits.

Last year we launched of 20 priority township upgrading programme. It
signalled our determination to decisively break the back of apartheid planning
and underdevelopment and continue to transform our townships into vibrant,
dynamic and sustainable communities where people live with decent social
amenities and access to economic opportunities.

This programme has a potential to build social development and stimulate
economic activities in townships thus ensuring that people in these areas are
not left behind in efforts to build their province into a globally competitive
city region.

The countdown to 11 June 2010 when South Africa will be hosting the
Federation International Football Association (Fifa) Soccer World Cup has begun
in earnest. Our preparations for also gathering steam with significant progress
being made to build stadia, practice venues, transport infrastructure and
healthcare facilities. We are working together, as provincial government and
municipalities, to host the Fifa international broadcast centre in Nasrec and
in developing the Information Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructure and
broadband connectivity across the province.

Programme director, this assembly provides us with an opportunity to ramp up
our work and deliver on mandate given to us in the 2004 general elections as
well as the 2006 local government elections. You have an important task to come
up with idea to maximise the impact of our service delivery initiatives, to
stimulate the economy, create jobs, reduced poverty and unemployment and ensure
that Gauteng truly becomes a better place in which to live.

I wish you well in your discussions and look forward to the proposals that
the assembly will make.

Issued by: Office of the Premier, Gauteng Provincial Government
13 September 2007