Date: 31/08/2010
Source: The Democratic Alliance
Title: DA: Wenger: Address by DA Member of Parliament, on Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, National Assembly, Cape Town

The skills shortages in local government are evident throughout the country, particularly in the Engineering field.

The South African Institute of Civil Engineers in their recent presentation stated that presently, only 1300 Civil Engineering Professionals were available to serve a population of 47 million, thus only 2.8 civil staff available per hundred thousand.

On a recent ad-hock committee oversight visit to Mpumalanga, we were informed that only 3 Engineers were in service to Municipalities to serve the entire population of the province.

Skills shortages will continue to hamper service delivery at municipal level in the absence of Engineers, Technologists, and Technicians in particular as projects will fail and huge amounts of money are being wasted.

Municipalities are failing due to:

- Limited capacity
- Funding
- Support for technical solutions
- Operations, maintenance, asset management
- Leadership, discipline and corruption
-
Infrastructure projects fail mainly due to limited capacity and control. 4% of contractors abandon the project as they cannot cope, 1% of contractors abandon projects as the municipality has not paid them timeously.
In the housing sector, 7% of the contractors' quality needed remedial work while 18% was of poor quality. 11% had faulty designs. At the end of it all only 51% were completed satisfactorily with minor problems.

The above figures demonstrate the dire situation and the wastage of funds that could have been put to better use.

The lack of maintenance in water and sanitation will continue to be one of our major challenges. We often say, "Water is Life" but sadly not all our communities have access to this basic need.

In many instances, sewage is running down the street as well as into our rivers. Pumps are broken, roads are impassable and many areas still do not have access to electricity.

Most of our municipalities suffer great water losses resulting in loss of revenue to the Municipality and at the same time causing structural damage to many of our roads. In Gauteng alone, R1.295 billion has been lost due to leaking pipes.

If we had efficient and competent engineers employed, this would not have happened. All too often, the cost of their professional salaries is used as an excuse, but if we take into consideration figures of the losses, these amounts could have rather been used for professional fees.

In many instances, positions are politicised instead of professionalised. The time has come that all municipalities appoint professional, registered, senior officials that have a sound track record with the assistance of the South African Institute of Civil Engineers.

Why are we not using the skills of professionals? SAICE has developed job descriptions, training plans and policies that we should be looking at to adopt instead of shying away from them.

Past experiences show that many a time, officials that are commissioned and tasked to do the interviewing are not qualified enough or competent enough to make the right decisions but are rather biased through their political affiliation.

An Action Plan is needed urgently to avoid any further delivery problems. We should bring the professionals on board through SAICE to assist Municipalities by seconding young engineering staff and apprentices under their professional watch. They could be responsible to assess backlogs, come up with plans how to refurbish and rehabilitate the ailing infrastructure and put in place a maintenance plan that could be beneficial to the particular municipality.

This should also be linked to education and training. Tertiary institutions should consider offering courses that are geared towards local government, such as National Diplomas in Municipal Engineering. There could also be courses offered in Operations and Maintenance as well as Asset Management.

We could also be engaging with the private sector and request them to assist with experienced professional staff in order to be effective, and who would assist in turning around the shortcoming that we are presently experiencing.
There are solutions to the problem - all we need is commitment, commitment, commitment.