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Date : 03/09/2004
Source: Gauteng Provincial Government
Title: Q D Mahlangu: A Speech tabling the 2003/04 Annual Report

A Speech tabling the 2003/04 Annual Report By MEC for Local Government, Qedani D. Mahlangu presented at the Gauteng Legislature

Honourable Speaker;
Honourable Premier;
Leaders of Political Parties;
Members of the Executive Council and the Legislature;
Comrades, Friends and Fellow South Africans.

Today I present to you the Annual Report for the Department of Development Planning and Local Government. In February 2003 our Premier declared, "Gauteng is a better place to live in". It is within the context of this declaration that the Department presented the 2003/04 budget that committed it to consolidate service delivery in the municipalities.

Honourable Speaker, since the establishment of 15 municipalities, we can safely say that we have laid a foundation to make our communities sustainable and we are now consolidating for sustainable service delivery.

Our strategy in the past financial year was to support local government and strive for effective municipal institutions that are able to meet the developmental needs of our communities. This strategy was implemented through various programmes and projects that made significant contribution towards creating developmental local government. The priorities of our strategy in 2003/04 financial year include the following:

* Improving the institutional and financial viability of municipalities;
* Supporting the institutional performance of municipalities;
* Fighting poverty through meeting basic needs and service delivery;
* Enhancing integrated development planning; * Sound economic development through local economic development strategies in the province and municipalities;
* Improving communication with communities and stakeholders;
* Involving people in governance and service delivery.

Our priorities clearly show the Department's commitment to changing the lives of our people in Gauteng. Whilst we have managed to meet most of our priorities, we are still faced with challenges that need to be addressed in the coming financial years.

Honourable Speaker, our communities can only be sustainable if we have municipal institutions that are financially sound. In supporting the creation of financial viable municipalities, the Department introduced innovative measures such as the Treasury Assistance Programme through Municipal Institutional Support Centre (MISC). The Department also assisted municipalities to streamline their tariff structures and the billing systems. To make sure that there are sound improvements in the financial management and debt reduction, we visited all municipalities to establish improvement targets, including targets for revenue collection. Such measures resulted in the improvement of revenue collection in municipalities such as Westonaria, Merafong, Sebokeng and Johannesburg.

Let me hasten to say that, amid all these achievements, municipalities in Gauteng still have the highest debts in the country. However, I wish to announce that the improvement of the municipalities' financial standing remains at the top of our future plans.

Last year the Department relentlessly continued with the support of municipal institutional transformation. Once again the Department played a sterling role in conducting human resource development workshops in all municipalities. We managed to implement human resource best practices through these workshops. To further assist in enhancing the institutional integrity and organisational development of municipalities, we extended training in financial management and human resources to municipal councillors.

Honourable Speaker, over the past two years we have intensified our efforts towards elimination of degrading bucket systems in the Province. We have also channelled resources in water projects to ensure that all Gauteng citizens have access to clean water. The seriousness of this Department in providing water and proper sanitation to all citizens is evident in the R88 million invested in our water and sanitation programme that started two years ago.

The upgrading of Sebokeng Water Treatment Works last year is one of the projects implemented through this programme to make sure that areas around Sebokeng have proper and adequate sanitation.

Last year R323 million CMIP fund was allocated to minimise the infrastructure backlogs in municipalities. The grant targeted the provision of water, sanitation, roads, solid waste, community lighting and other community facilities. The Department allocated R12, 47 million of these funds for Alexandra Urban Renewal to address the backlogs.

During the current financial year, the Department will engage municipalities with a view to look critically at the implementation of this programme, especially on targets of providing quality sanitation in areas where several households are still sharing.

Access to basic services in both informal settlements and private land is still a challenge. We have been in discussions with municipalities to extend services to all identified areas and a number of municipalities have started planning to address this priority.

The recently launched Municipal Infrastructure Grant (MIG) will also assist us in making sure that municipalities provide the necessary infrastructure to continue improving the lives of our people.

The Department is proud to mention that in 2003/04, a ground breaking legislation pioneered by this Department was promulgated; the Gauteng Planning and Development Act of 2003. The Act will go a long way towards ensuring that we move away from control oriented planning system to a comprehensive planning system of development planning and land use management that is developmental.

This was further underpinned by the completion of the draft Provincial Integrated Development Plan (PIDP), which will ensure that there are vertical and horizontal integration and alignment processes between the three spheres of government. The improved co-ordination of planning in the Province will ensure sustainable development in the future.

The assessment of municipal Integrated Development Plans (IDPs) was successfully done and compliance with the legal requirements of the Municipal Structures Act has vastly improved compared to the previous years.

In addition, the alignment of municipal IDPs with provincial and national plans, policies, strategies and projects has also improved significantly.

Thirteen of the 15 municipalities have submitted their IDPs for assessment in the last financial year. I wish to add that the participation of sector Departments in the municipal IDP process has been overwhelmingly high and this can only strengthen the effort to ensure integrated and sustainable service delivery at local level.

The economic regeneration of the District Municipalities received a great boost in 2003/04. The Department launched the Sedibeng Chemical Incubator Project and the Cut Foliage Project in West Rand. The Chemical Incubator Project is one of the pioneering initiatives of realigning the manufacturing industry of area towards sophisticated, high-value added production of downstream chemical products. It is envisioned that this project will contribute towards the development of specific skills to increase Gauteng's knowledge economy, which currently makes up 15% of its total economy. The project will create vast opportunities for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to thrive in Sedibeng. SMEs are currently, experiencing constrains which inhibit their capacity to foster job creation opportunities. The project will provide support to those main areas for which small business have expressed a need for government intervention such as; access to finance, business advisory service, enterprise support services, access to markets and promotion. The project will also provide an opportunity to diversify the economy that has been over relying on steel.

Although mining remains the biggest contributor of GGP in the West Rand, it has become apparent that there is a need to diversify the economic base of the area by strengthening other economic sectors with potential for high growth and job creation. One such sector is agriculture, which has a location quotient that reflects comparative advantage in the Province.

The Department has so far invested a total amount of R7,4 million in the Cut Foliage Project. The Department has invested in this project because it contains key elements that are in line with the provincial economic strategic thrusts. Firstly, the project signifies the province's shift in focus - a move away from subsistence projects that are unsustainable - towards a broad series of projects that stimulate the local economy in broad terms. Critical to all this, the project will enable the citizens of the locality to trade beyond their boundaries into other regions, nationally and globally. The second key element of this project is that it will produce high value foliage crops with a niche market in Europe as well as broader based domestic markets. The third key element is the job creation of the project. The project will create job opportunities ranging from processing, packaging and distribution and this will bring value adding to the area. The fourth element is that high value products such as cut foliage represent opportunities for small business development and expansion of export markets. Last but not least, the project carries with it a strong element of empowerment. Government's strategy is to see overtime the ownership of such projects gradually being handed over to the employees' trust or community trust. However, this would be done through a carefully worked out government exit strategy. The strategy will ensure that world class producers of cut foliage are created and recognized internationally because of local products that they have produced.

To ensure an integrated approach to local economic development in the province, the Department, in consultation with municipalities, provincial stakeholders and the Department of Provincial and Local Government, developed the draft Provincial Local Economic Development Strategy. The strategy will form an integral part of the Provincial Growth and Development Strategy.

In the last financial year the Department has contributed towards enhancing local democracy, transparency and encouraging public participation in government affairs.

Since the introduction of the participatory local government, the department has assisted municipalities in the formulation, development and implementation of the Integrated Development Plans, the monitoring of the municipalities' performance, alternative service delivery methods and budgeting. Significant progress was made in terms of making sure that our ward committees are functional, despite all the challenges they are faced with. Ward committees were initially expected to do their work without any frameworks or guidelines, however the Department has introduced mechanisms to improve and strengthen local democracy including the strategies for the work of ward committees and development of a comprehensive training programme.

So far 432 ward committees in Gauteng are fully functional. Fifty percent of the ward committees still need administrative support to make them fully functional, particularly those in rural areas of the Province.

In enhancing the work of the ward committees the Department successfully rolled out the Community Development Workers (CDWs) programme in November 2003. So far 102 CDW cadets have been trained and deployed to areas of critical need for government services. The CDWs will work with our councillors and ward committees to make sure that information on government services reaches everyone in our communities. As pioneers of CDW programme, we have hosted delegates from KwaZulu Natal and Limpopo coming to exchange ideas and lessons.

The Department has also assisted municipalities to put in place measures to promote accountability. This includes the development and implementation of anti fraud and corruption strategies and Batho Pele principles.

Once again the Department has received an unqualified audit opinion from the Auditor General and all gratitude goes to the staff of the Department.

I wish to thank the Premier, Mbhazima Shilowa for his leadership and my fellow colleagues in Executive Council and officials in the Department for the support they gave to this Department over the past year.

I thank you

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