S Mufamadi: National Vuna Awards Ceremony

4 December 2007

Programme director, Mr Vuyo Mbuli
Deputy Minister for Provincial and Local Government, Ms Nomatyala Hangana
Professor Stan Sangweni and other members of the Adjudication Panel
Honourable premiers
Honourable members of parliament
Honourable MECs responsible for local government affairs
Chairperson of Salga, Mayor Amos Masondo
Traditional leaders of our people
Mayors and Councillors here present
Esteemed partners from the Development Bank of Southern Africa
The National Productivity Institute and the South African Local Government
Association
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen

Introduction

Having brought into life, the political and administrative boundaries that
define our new local government system in December 2000, we assembled at this
venue three years later, to inaugurate the Municipal Performance Excellence
Awards.

At the time in 2003 that is, a total of 220 municipalities had decided to
open their own performance to scrutiny by entering the contest. The leaders of
those municipalities entered the contest in the full knowledge that each one of
our municipal spaces signifies a field of practice in which practitioners have
the lifetime responsibility of negotiating the limits of the possible.

The previous winners shall be remembered and celebrated by posterity, for
indelibly putting the benchmarks of outstanding performance on the ground.
Those early pioneers made it possible for us, to internalise the conviction
that conditions of deprivation are not immutable. They gave us a glimpse into
our own future of aspiration.

Milestone

Ladies and gentlemen, all our 283 municipalities are replete with conditions
that make them a theatre of struggle a zone of combat against maladies that
plague humanity. These range from problems of inadequate access to basic
services, subjection to grinding levels of poverty, to high levels of
insecurity which our communities suffer in the hands of criminals. Even the
apparently well endowed municipalities did not have an unambiguous head start.
They also faced and continue to face, the challenge posed by the reality of us
having significant numbers of households that are without easy access to
critical life-sustaining resources.

The cumulative positive lessons have thus far convinced us that success will
be an outcome of a sustained and dynamic build up of institutional
capabilities. At the same time, we believe, it is possible to shorten delivery
timelines through various cutting edge innovations. This explains why, through
the introduction of project consolidate; we effected an upward adjustment of
the minimum speed-limit. So far, 359 experts have been cumulatively deployed to
provide hands-on support to 105 project consolidate municipalities.

The all 'hands-on-deck' commitment was reaffirmed and further elaborated
when together with our nine provincial governments and Salga, Cabinet adopted a
Local Government Strategic Agenda for the period of 2006 to 2011. The agenda
sets out three strategic priorities:

mainstreaming hands-on support to local government in order to improve
municipal governance, performance and accountability; addressing the structure
and governance arrangements of the state with a view to strengthen, support and
monitor local government and refining and strengthen the policy, regulatory and
fiscal environment for local government, and paying greater attention to
enforcement measures. In this regard, I wish to point out that we are on course
to finalise the policy review process in 2008.

The balance sheet

Progress made thus far represents a living refutation of the stereotype
which projects local government as an innately failed sphere. By July 2007, all
municipalities had adopted integrated development plans. We undertook a
credibility analysis which shows that 79% of all municipalities have Integrated
Development Plans (IDPs) whose credibility is rated as either medium or high.
This speaks to the improved ability to undertake strategic planning and the
ability of the local government leadership to provide the necessary political,
strategic and policy guidance.

We note with a deep sense of appreciation, the findings of the 2007
community survey published by Statistics South Africa. The findings communicate
a message that untiring industry, sound sense, and unswerving fidelity, are
important qualities whose display is bound to bring success.

In its findings, the community survey tells us that:

* the number of households with access to water has increased from 59% in
1994 to 88% in 2007
* the number of households with access to sanitation has increased from 48% in
1999 to 78% in 2007, further that
* whereas in 1994, only 30% of households had access to electricity, in 2007,
this increased to 59% for heating, 67% for cooking and 80% for lighting.

In addition to all this, we set out to eradicate the abominable system of
bucket sanitation in formal settlements by the end of December 2007.

My colleague the Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry, will tomorrow make
an announcement which tells a story of our achievements in this regard. We also
used this particular programme as an experiment towards overcoming the
challenge of data comparability across the three spheres of government.
Overall, we have an increasingly comprehensive set of quantitative and
qualitative information and knowledge on local government, which we did not
have in 2003. This results in part from the fact that 31% of our municipalities
now have organisational performance management systems in place.

These systems are assisting us at provincial and national level, to
institutionalise a nationwide monitoring, reporting and evaluation mechanism
covering all our municipalities. Indeed, our fledgling monitoring and
evaluation (M&E) systems offer a better picture of what is, thereby
vindicating the words of John Maynard Keynes: "It is better to be roughly right
than to be precisely wrong".

Continuing support to local government

Ladies and gentleman, we note with profound gratitude that provincial
governments are assuming greater responsibility to discharge their
constitutional obligation to support municipalities within their areas of
jurisdiction. Provincial Local Government Support Plans of varying quality are
now in place. A number of national government departments have crafted similar
plans. The Department of Provincial and Local Government has published
guidelines in order to assist national sector departments as they complete
their master sector plans.

We are committing energy and resources to the vision of a better functioning
local government sphere. In this regard, we continue to assist municipalities
to attract persons who posses human capital of critical value. We have however,
not yet been able to achieve our target of whittling down to zero, the
municipal senior management vacancy rate by September 2007. This therefore,
remains a task, which requires urgent attention in the coming year. The current
municipal manager vacancy rate of 22% is uncomfortably high and we cannot, in
all conscience, continue to tolerate it.

The Vuna award contest

This year, we have witnessed a reduced rate of participation in the Vuna
awards contest; from 220 municipalities that entered the contest in 2003 to the
141 municipalities which entered this year. These are 141 municipalities who
correctly believe that the benchmarks set by previous participants are open to
betterment in 2007 and beyond. In a situation where the gradient of
contestation is becoming steeper, 141 municipalities constitute a significant
confirmation of the welcome fact that in our fledgling democracy, outstanding
municipalities are not unsustainable exceptions.

Conclusion

The accomplishment of, and the due recognition we give to the
municipalities, as well as to the best helpful provincial and national
government departments represent our attempt to show, in the most enduring way
possible, that we have no intention to lose our developmental sensibilities. We
are determined to stay on course…on the road to a better and worthy future.

Thank you.

Issued by: Department of Provincial and Local Government
4 December 2007
Source: Department of Provincial and Local Government (http://www.dplg.gov.za)