Date: 24/08/2004
Source: Ministry of Provincial and Local Government
Title: S Mufamadi: Challenges of accelerating provision of free basic services
SPEECH DELIVERED BY MINISTER FS MUFAMADI, IN THE NATIONAL COUNCIL OF PROVINCES, ON STRENGHTENING THE PEOPLE'S CONTRACT TO ADDRESS THE CHALLENGES OF ACCELERATING THE PROVISION OF FREE BASIC SERVICES, 24 August 2004
Chairperson;
Esteemed Delegates and
Honourable Members:
In his State of the Nation Address to the Parliament in February 2000, President Mbeki enjoined government to initiate a process of providing free basic services to our people. This injunction was informed by the normative choice we made in favour of bringing sustainable development and a better life within the reach and grasp of our country and its people. It is also located within the global drive to achieve the Millennium Goals. A commitment has been made to ensure that all households have access to clean portable water by the year 2008 and further that; all households are electrified by the year 2012.
Today's discussion gives us the welcome opportunity collectively to assess the progress, which is being made in the actual theatre of implementation, to appreciate the challenges that lie ahead and to equip ourselves so that we may better be able to discharge our obligation to our country and our people.
Chairperson, I must hasten to point out that progress with respect to the roll-out of Free Basic Services provision programme cannot be measured outside the institutionally and historically specific circumstances of our country. Those are the circumstances, which consigned the overwhelming majority of our people to areas, and households that were severely underserved. In addition to this, other forms of deliberate neglect produced for us, the legacy of endemic infrastructure backlogs. It is this latter factor, which makes the terrain, which we are ranging, particularly bumpy.
The roll-out of Free Basic Water (FBW) commenced in earnest in July 2001, and has progressed quite significantly. Currently, 86% of our municipalities are providing free basic water. The roll-our of free basic electricity kicked off in July 2003. Progress with respect to the provision of both services has been pretty much uneven, both within and between provinces. Also, more progress has been realised in the larger municipalities than in smaller and poorer rural municipalities.
The hierarchy of achievement reveals extreme disparities between provinces and municipalities. For instance, with regard to provinces, the Northern Cape occupies a polar position with all the municipalities within its jurisdiction providing Free Basic Water and Free Basic Electricity. In the other end of the spectrum is KwaZulu-Natal, with all its 51 local municipalities providing some Free Basic Water and only 26 of these are providing some level of free basic electricity and the remaining 25 not providing any free basic energy yet.
I must also point out that even those municipalities that are already providing free basic services have still to attain the goal of universal access. In other words, all municipalities are so far providing Free Basic Services to less beneficiaries than anticipated. This brings into sharp relief several factors, which have a deleterious effect on our capacity to sustain and enhance current trends. These factors include:
* Poor revenue collection, which leads to pile up of municipal debt
* The absence of a robust revenue base, especially in areas that are marginal to urban conurbations or are rural enclaves of poverty-endemicity
* The paucity of municipal infrastructure and
* Poor operation and maintenance of existing infrastructure.
These factors are on the radar-screens not only of municipalities but also, of provincial and national governments. We continually introduce measures, which are intended to engender improvements in the institutional support, which we give to municipalities. We do so in order to strengthen local government's implementation capacity as well as to ensure proper planning and budgeting.
All these measures, important as they are, are not adequate. They need to be complemented by concrete steps, which seek to decisively extricate many of our people out of exclusionary processes that they were thrust into, in the past. One such step was taken when we recently launched the Municipal Infrastructure Grant. In terms of this programme, we have allocated an amount of R15, 6 billion for municipalities to spend over the MEDIUM TERM EXPENDITURE FRAMEWORK period. The consolidation of previously fragmented grants into MIG will help us improve on what used to be a relatively diffused and feeble assault on municipal infrastructure backlogs, poverty and underdevelopment. This development will also enable us effectively to pursue such other policy goals as job-creation, sustainable economic growth and the attendant enhancement of municipal revenue base.
In order for us to achieve these interlinked goals, we require a governmental system whose levels of inter-sphere co-ordination are more greatly enhanced, a local government sphere which is more robust in its functional efficiency, as well as municipal residents (individual and corporate) with unbending commitment to their civil responsibilities. That you saw it fit to organise for this discussion today, is a sure sign that in the National Council of Provinces, the executive branch of government has a dependable ally in the struggle for sustained service delivery.
I thank you.
Issued by: Ministry of Provincial and Local Government
24 August 2004
Source: Ministry of Provincial and Local Government
Title: S Mufamadi: Challenges of accelerating provision of free basic services
SPEECH DELIVERED BY MINISTER FS MUFAMADI, IN THE NATIONAL COUNCIL OF PROVINCES, ON STRENGHTENING THE PEOPLE'S CONTRACT TO ADDRESS THE CHALLENGES OF ACCELERATING THE PROVISION OF FREE BASIC SERVICES, 24 August 2004
Chairperson;
Esteemed Delegates and
Honourable Members:
In his State of the Nation Address to the Parliament in February 2000, President Mbeki enjoined government to initiate a process of providing free basic services to our people. This injunction was informed by the normative choice we made in favour of bringing sustainable development and a better life within the reach and grasp of our country and its people. It is also located within the global drive to achieve the Millennium Goals. A commitment has been made to ensure that all households have access to clean portable water by the year 2008 and further that; all households are electrified by the year 2012.
Today's discussion gives us the welcome opportunity collectively to assess the progress, which is being made in the actual theatre of implementation, to appreciate the challenges that lie ahead and to equip ourselves so that we may better be able to discharge our obligation to our country and our people.
Chairperson, I must hasten to point out that progress with respect to the roll-out of Free Basic Services provision programme cannot be measured outside the institutionally and historically specific circumstances of our country. Those are the circumstances, which consigned the overwhelming majority of our people to areas, and households that were severely underserved. In addition to this, other forms of deliberate neglect produced for us, the legacy of endemic infrastructure backlogs. It is this latter factor, which makes the terrain, which we are ranging, particularly bumpy.
The roll-out of Free Basic Water (FBW) commenced in earnest in July 2001, and has progressed quite significantly. Currently, 86% of our municipalities are providing free basic water. The roll-our of free basic electricity kicked off in July 2003. Progress with respect to the provision of both services has been pretty much uneven, both within and between provinces. Also, more progress has been realised in the larger municipalities than in smaller and poorer rural municipalities.
The hierarchy of achievement reveals extreme disparities between provinces and municipalities. For instance, with regard to provinces, the Northern Cape occupies a polar position with all the municipalities within its jurisdiction providing Free Basic Water and Free Basic Electricity. In the other end of the spectrum is KwaZulu-Natal, with all its 51 local municipalities providing some Free Basic Water and only 26 of these are providing some level of free basic electricity and the remaining 25 not providing any free basic energy yet.
I must also point out that even those municipalities that are already providing free basic services have still to attain the goal of universal access. In other words, all municipalities are so far providing Free Basic Services to less beneficiaries than anticipated. This brings into sharp relief several factors, which have a deleterious effect on our capacity to sustain and enhance current trends. These factors include:
* Poor revenue collection, which leads to pile up of municipal debt
* The absence of a robust revenue base, especially in areas that are marginal to urban conurbations or are rural enclaves of poverty-endemicity
* The paucity of municipal infrastructure and
* Poor operation and maintenance of existing infrastructure.
These factors are on the radar-screens not only of municipalities but also, of provincial and national governments. We continually introduce measures, which are intended to engender improvements in the institutional support, which we give to municipalities. We do so in order to strengthen local government's implementation capacity as well as to ensure proper planning and budgeting.
All these measures, important as they are, are not adequate. They need to be complemented by concrete steps, which seek to decisively extricate many of our people out of exclusionary processes that they were thrust into, in the past. One such step was taken when we recently launched the Municipal Infrastructure Grant. In terms of this programme, we have allocated an amount of R15, 6 billion for municipalities to spend over the MEDIUM TERM EXPENDITURE FRAMEWORK period. The consolidation of previously fragmented grants into MIG will help us improve on what used to be a relatively diffused and feeble assault on municipal infrastructure backlogs, poverty and underdevelopment. This development will also enable us effectively to pursue such other policy goals as job-creation, sustainable economic growth and the attendant enhancement of municipal revenue base.
In order for us to achieve these interlinked goals, we require a governmental system whose levels of inter-sphere co-ordination are more greatly enhanced, a local government sphere which is more robust in its functional efficiency, as well as municipal residents (individual and corporate) with unbending commitment to their civil responsibilities. That you saw it fit to organise for this discussion today, is a sure sign that in the National Council of Provinces, the executive branch of government has a dependable ally in the struggle for sustained service delivery.
I thank you.
Issued by: Ministry of Provincial and Local Government
24 August 2004
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