FREE DAILY EMAIL

Date : 20/05/2005
Source: Department of Provincial and Local Government
Title: Mufamadi: Provincial and Local Government Dept Budget Vote policy debate, NCOP


    Address by the Minister for Provincial and Local Government, Mr FS Mufamadi: Policy debate: National Council of Provinces

Chairperson;
Members of the Executive Council responsible for local government affairs;
Honourable members and Delegates from our provinces as well as Salga:

A central concern of the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) is to see our multi-sphered system of government staying signposted towards the goal of bringing about a better life for all our people. Indeed, the NCOP’s programme of action commits the house to an undertaking that by the year 2009, the NCOP will spend 70% of its time and resources performing oversight responsibilities and 30% on legislation. At the centre of your programme is the idea of ‘Taking Parliament to the People’ – an idea which was unveiled in 2002. We have already seen this happen as you took parliament to KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga provinces, thereby affording rural communities the opportunity for direct interaction with a parliament they can rightfully call their own. Given the historical peripheralisation of the people in the townships and the rural areas of our country, your decision must indeed be commended, for it serves to underscore the point that the institutional foundations of our government and parliament are shaped by an unbending commitment to inclusivity.

For its part, government has taken initiatives which are aimed at accelerating our effort to reach and deepen the same goal of inclusivity. These initiatives include:

* work which is already underway to develop a framework for the alignment of the National Spatial Development Perspective, the Provincial Growth and Development Strategies and the municipal Integrated Development Plans (IDPs)
* a programme of IDP hearings which started in April 2005 and is meant to be completed by June.

This particular programme will be implemented in selected municipalities covering the span of all our 47 district municipalities and six metropolitan municipalities. We have enlisted the services of experts who are drawn from various organizations to constitute panels that will facilitate those hearings. The value of the IDP hearings must be assessed on two counts: first, as an exercise which seeks to make into a reality the notion that communities are co-framers of development plans and municipal budgets; and second, as a means of establishing a baseline from which acceleration towards the pinnacle of progress, can be orchestrated.

As we speak, successful hearings have already taken place in seven of our nine provinces, namely, Free State, KwaZulu Natal, Limpopo, Mpumalanga, Northern Cape, North West and Western Cape.

This and other initiatives of a similar kind, provide a platform to the NCOP to execute its oversight mandate regarding the practice of intergovernmental relations. As the NCOP interacts with the people on the basis of its own programme, it will no doubt, make its own determination as to what is required to change the lives of the people for the better. It will also be able not only to assess the efficacy of the strategic plans of individual departments but also, it will be able to evaluate our instruments for co-ordinating the delivery of cross-cutting programmes. The NCOP will have to satisfy itself that government has put in place; strategic plans, which at once offer certainty and predictability as to the development goals that are being pursued and also have the necessary flexibility to respond to political and economic feedback.

As far as municipal strategic planning is concerned, we must always bear in mind that we only started to have fully-fledged IDPs in 2001 as the new local government structure and system was beginning to firm up. The relative stability which we experienced within such a relatively short space of time, speaks to the level of “adaptive efficiency” that we have been able to achieve. For instance, our assessment of the IDPs in 2003 showed that about 72% of our municipalities have the basic institutional capacity in place to prepare effective IDPs. However, despite the existence of the basic institutional capacity, almost half of these municipalities require support to be able to prepare such IDPs.

Meanwhile, the balance of municipalities, lack not only the capacity to prepare effective IDPs, but also they need to be assisted to put in place the requisite institutional mechanisms. These realities tell us that the actual unfolding of local government transformation processes does not conform to such neat trajectories as we visualised in the beginning. For instance, we visualised a periodised unfolding of transformation which starts with the establishment of municipalities, going through to a stabilisation phase and ultimately into the phase of sustainability. These three distinct phases have in practice, tended to be coincident and not linear in sequence; and the process has also, for historical and other reasons, been differential as between municipalities.

Chairperson, honourable members and honourable delegates, in his 2005 State of the Nation Address, President Thabo Mbeki expressed concern about the State, and particularly local government, not having sufficient capability to implement its own development and poverty alleviation programmes. Accordingly, the President charged the Forum of South African Directors-General (FOSAD) with the task of assessing the overall effectiveness of government. FOSAD will deliver its report for consideration by the Cabinet Lekgotla which is due to take place in July this year.

The importance of FOSAD urgently completing its task and Cabinet taking the necessary decision cannot be overemphasized. This is especially crucial when one bears in mind the following:

* the need for the state to consolidate its reach and impact as we get deeper into the second decade of freedom
* the need to develop capacity which is indigenous to local government so that municipalities themselves may efficiently discharge their obligations to the people.Significant work has already been done in this regard since we have, among other things, established Planning, Implementation Management Support (PIMS) Centres in all 47 district municipalities
* the need for support to be extended to provinces some of whom have reportedly underspent their budget allocations for public works programmes, roads and transport. This provincial underspending of the adjusted capital budgets, coupled with underspending with respect to the Municipal Infrastructure Grant (MIG), has the pernicious effect of entrenching social and economic infrastructure backlogs, thus denying local economies the essentials for catalysing private sector investment.

The support given to provinces will enable them to develop their own Growth and Development Strategies. At the same time, it will enable them to join hands with national and local governments, as well as with South African Local Government Association (SALGA), to assist the municipalities. After all, not only should we ensure that there is a tight fit between the plans and operations of all our three spheres of government but also, we must see municipal areas as impact zones for our government-wide development effort. This necessitates that we internalize in our plans and operations the fact that local government is a development space shared by all spheres of government.

As honourable members know, municipalities are expected to provide complementarily to services provided by the other two spheres of government. A school or clinic built in a province must be serviced with water, sanitation, electricity and access roads. The absence of alignment with respect to planning, budgeting and even execution between the spheres can only crimp the basket of services which is available to the people.

Chairperson, the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa enjoins us to table the Intergovernmental Relations Framework Bill. This we did in February this year. The Bill is now awaiting adoption by the National Assembly and will, in due course, serve before this House. The Bill seeks to achieve institutional certainty about inter-sphere collaboration towards the goal of sustained, positive and integrated impact on the development challenges facing our country. As I said earlier, it will also provide the framework for refining our budgetary as well as our planning systems and processes.

I must say that the Bill could not have come at a better time. It comes at a time when the need for the constituent elements of government to work as a cohesive unit is more manifest that it has ever been before. It comes at a time when all our spheres of government, individually or severally, have to find more technically efficient ways of serving the people.

Chairperson, honourable members and delegates, you will recall that on 24 August 2004, in a special debate before the House, we spoke of the need for a governmental system whose levels of inter-sphere coordination are more greatly enhanced, a local government sphere which is robust in its functional efficiency, as well as municipal residents (individual and corporate) with unbending commitment to their civic responsibilities. Although the realisation of this goal, as is the case with all fundamental changes, has been relatively slow in materialising, we have never been closer to the goal than we are today. We advance towards the goal comfortable in the knowledge that we can continue to count on the active support of the National Council of Provinces. Together let us do what we have to do for the sake of this, our country.

I thank you.

Issued by: Department of Provincial and Local Government
20 May 2005
   

SPONSORED BY

Advanced