Mufamadi, at the Budget Vote debate, National Council of Provinces (NCOP)
30 May 2006
Chairperson
MECs responsible for local government affairs
The leadership of SALGA
Honourable members
When the past generation of local councillors assumed office in the year
2000, they found themselves on somewhat unfamiliar territory, a territory with
few landmarks to guide them. Many of those councillors had responsibilities for
areas which were previously marginal to developmental considerations. That some
of those areas underwent some degree of transformation, is a crowning point of
the endeavours of that pioneer generation of councillors, a remarkable feat
worthy of our collective appreciation.
Honourable members will recall that in the year 2001, 21 areas were
designated as nodes. This meant that these areas were targeted for intense
priority attention so that they could be extricated from the underdevelopment
and poverty trap. Just before the 2006 local government elections, we conducted
an impact analysis in those nodal municipalities.
Amongst the findings was the fact that access to basic and above-basic level
of water service in the rural nodes has increased from 54% in 2001 to 58% in
2004. This improvement is higher than the average rate of improvement in the
country as a whole. A specific example of this is in the Alfred Nzo District
Municipality, where out of the 126 000 households, 72 000 households,
constituting 57%, have benefited from the water provision initiative, which was
undertaken in the context of the Integrated and Sustainable Rural Development
Programme.
Of the more than 2,4 million households that benefited from the provision of
houses, almost 900 000 households are located in the rural nodes. Between 2002
and September 2005 a total of 374 000 electricity connections were made in the
rural nodes, thereby giving the households access to a quality life and
enhancing service -electricity.
In order to reinforce these trends, 264 community development workers have
so far been deployed in the nodes. An additional 201 community development
workers are still in learnership, and upon completion they will also be
deployed into both urban and rural development nodes.
Similar trends are in evidence in the urban nodes. For instance, in the
Alexandra urban renewal node, 6 000 households have benefited from new
electricity connections, and 1 200 new houses have been built in the township.
In addition, 3 000 housing units were provided outside Alexandra to accommodate
relocated households. Furthermore, a new multi-purpose community centre is
operational. The Department of Home Affairs now has new offices in the
multi-purpose centre, and at the Alexandra Clinic a new central social welfare
office has been made operational as well. The office has become a point through
which more than 12 000 beneficiaries are able to access their monthly social
grants.
Gratified as we are by these achievements, we do not see them as the
ultimate horizon. Our endeavour to remake South African society in accordance
with the ideals for which we took to war is ceaseless. In response to the
yearnings of our people as communicated to us during the Presidential and
Ministerial izimbizo and in the course of the election campaigns we have
undertaken to make the current term of local government one during which
unprecedented levels of progress shall be realised.
It is our intention to ensure that no community will still be using the
bucket system for sanitation by the end of 2007. We are also determined to
ensure that all communities will have access to clean water and decent
sanitation by 2010 and that all houses will have electricity by 2012.
Prior to the 2006 local government elections, we introduced a hands-on
programme of support for local government. Not only did that programme help us
to achieve the short-term goal of removing obstacles which stood in the way of
service and infrastructure delivery, but it also provided us as government
practitioners with the possibility to better understand and navigate the
governance and developmental landscape. Those achievements must be assimilated
by the current generation of practitioners, including the newly elected
councillors.
One of the lessons we derived from that experience is the necessity for the
Department for Provincial and Local Government and its counterparts in the
provinces to place themselves firmly at the centre of intergovernmental
co-ordinating processes. They must help to crystallise the relevance of
national and provincial departments to the mandate and work of our
municipalities.
We have already seen some of the benefits of intergovernmental collaboration
and support. For instance, by March 2006, 80% of all municipalities in the
country had draft integrated development plans. This achievement followed on an
intensive process of interaction between local governments stakeholders in all
the nine provinces. The process has given us better insights into the resource
and capacity support requirements of each municipality and those resources as
well as the capacity that need to be deployed in order to respond to the
requirements as identified in the municipality are in the process of being
mobilised.
It is also our purpose this year to pay the closest attention to the full
implementation of the intergovernmental relations framework legislation. The
Presidentâs Co-ordinating Council, whose establishment predates the enactment
of the legislation, is now fully operational. We used the Presidentâs
Co-ordinating Councilâs establishment and experimental operationalisation as a
model for future practice.
The provinces are now working closely with local government to facilitate
the establishment of district intergovernmental structures. National government
will also lend a hand to this process.
We have also come to realise that districts will require additional support
for them to assume their rightful role as developmental facilitators in the
municipalities that resort under their jurisdiction. In this regard, we will
need to more clearly define the district shared service model more clearly.
This, of course, goes hand in hand with clarifying distributional patterns of
powers and functions across government. It also extends to related matters of
assignment and devolution of functions to local government. Major efforts are
being undertaken in this regard and we aim to present a report for
consideration by the extended Cabinet Lekgotla in July 2006. The report,
together with the decisions which shall have been occasioned by it, will form a
basis for intense interaction between the executive and the legislative
branches of government across the three spheres.
The NCOP in particular will need to bring its own insights to bear on this
matter, given the constitutional responsibilities it has towards our
multi-sphere system of government. As we said in the National Assembly last
week, steps are being taken to increase the scope for a democratic check on the
performance of the political and the administrative leadership of local
government.
In addition to launching a handbook for ward committees and the ward
committee resource handbook, we are now working on a National Framework on
Public Participation in local government. And we are also finalising a
submission to the South African Qualifications Authority, for an accredited
training course for ward committees. On the other hand there is underway a
parallel process of establishing district houses of traditional leaders, as
well as traditional councils as visualised in the relevant national framework
legislation. In the same way as councillors and ward committee members are
being trained throughout the country, traditional leaders and members of
traditional councils must also be trained in the art of improving the quality
of interaction with the mechanisms and processes of governance. This matter is
receiving attention, and the programme shall be unveiled soon.
The demands of the moment are beckoning us to pay continuing and unflagging
attention to the task of supporting those municipalities who still lack the
indigenous capacity for discharging their constitutional mandates. This must be
done within the context of more coordinated and better-focussed
intergovernmental mechanisms and processes.
On current trends however, we are immensely hopeful and we are now able to
contemplate in a manner never previously possible, the prospect of ushering in
a glorious new age for all our people. And in all the endeavours that we are
making going forward, we hope we can continue to count on the generous
demonstration of political will and support from this House.
I thank you.
Issued by: Department of Provincial and Local Government
30 May 2006
Source: Hansard
