Date: 09/12/04
Source: Ministry of Local and Provincial Government
Title: Mufamadi: Vuna Awards Ceremony
Speech delivered by Minister F.S Mufamadi, on the occasion of the celebration of the fourth anniversary of the new Local Government System and the 2nd Annual Vuna Awards Ceremony
9 December 2004
Programme Director, Sandy Ngema; Honourable Premiers; Deputy Minister Nomatyala Hangana; MECs from our nine provinces; The chairperson of SALGA, Councillor Amos Masondo; Mayors and councillors from all our country’s municipalities; Members of Parliament and Members of Provincial Legislatures; Traditional Leaders of our people here present; Esteemed Partners representing the Development Bank of Southern Africa, the National Productivity Institute and the South African Local Government Association; Distinguished Guests; Ladies and Gentlemen: On behalf of Deputy Minister Hangana, our partners the DBSA, NPI and SALGA, as well as in my personal behalf, I wish to register our profound sense of appreciation for the attendance of so many of you this evening. It is that time of the year when our country is replete with festive events which present all of us with the agony of choice: the difficulty of knowing which event to prioritise for attendance. By choosing to come here rather than go elsewhere, you have given us the opportunity to confirm that you and we are united in a common sense of mission. We share a commitment to open up the horizon to a better life for all.
Today, four years and four days since the inception of our new local government system, we meet to acknowledge that sufficient time has passed, and that we have gained enough insights to be able to distil lessons and experience which must be fully absorbed. Indeed, it is the attitude of the Ministry and its partners, that all our 284 municipalities have a right to put themselves forward for the accolade of “Municipal Performance Excellence”. I am informed that whereas last year 220 municipalities entered the contest confident that they were worthy of the accolade, only 156 municipalities felt confident enough to do so this year. These 156 contestants constitute 54.93% of the totality of our municipalities.
That such a substantial number of municipalities still felt confident to test themselves against the criteria which have been made more stringent, is a matter for our young democracy to be proud of. Taken together, all these cases confirm that we have a workable system of local government which ordinary people are doing their extraordinary best to refine and perfect. Much is being achieved on the ground. Our municipalities are spiralling forward along the learning curve – producing medium to long-term trends that present us with an optimistic prognosis.
I say all this because I had the benefit of going through all the detailed reports of the provincial adjudication panels. The reports tell us that each of the elements we are striving to cultivate exists in the municipalities that applied to take part in the Vuna contest; albeit with differing weights and patterns of historical evolution. Given the observation, my heart goes out in thankfulness to all the adjudicators who played midwife to all the episodes leading up to this occasion. They assembled the material which will help all our people, irrespective of the municipality in which they are resident. This material will help them to come to terms with themselves by considering the example of others.
The adjudicators were given the responsibility of identifying our icons by measuring aspiring municipalities along the following five broad dimensions: * Service delivery and infrastructure development,
* Local economic development,
* Municipal financial viability,
* Municipal transformation and institutional development, and
* Good corporate governance
Our emphasis on these “Key Performance Areas” is informed by the conviction that the local government sphere is an indispensable antidote for dealing with a syndrome of issues that constitute the most basic national challenges:
these are issues such as underdevelopment, stagnation and poverty. Accordingly, as every individual municipality improves its own performance, we enhance our nation’s institutional possibility effectively to meet those challenges.
Such is the importance we attach to local government that you would recall that on the 29th of October 2004, we launched “Project Consolidate” – a hands-on programme of support for local government. In terms of this programme, we intend to help municipalities that we identified as being in need of such help. We want to help them overcome their current difficulties of capacity constraints and to flourish into the future! It is our intention to give these municipalities access to a much larger pool of expertise in various functional areas of municipal governance. In this regard, I want to thank all our friends from private sector organisations, parastatals, SALGA as well as national and provincial government departments, who have shown willingness to make the burden lighter by sharing it with us. They have agreed to commit their time, expertise and other resources, to the process of enhancing local government’s capacity for performance.
As our friends come along into the trenches, they will find in us (public office-bearers and government officials), partners who are imbued with the passion to succeed. Our work is continuously informed by the popular feedback we receive from the people. For instance, we know that currently more than 86% of municipalities are providing free basic water and that more than 50% of the country’s households are benefiting from this government intervention. We also know that with respect to redressing electrification backlogs, we have realised more progress in the larger municipalities than in smaller and poorer municipalities. The overall picture unfortunately, is one in which all municipalities are currently providing free basic services to less beneficiaries than anticipated.
It is for this reason, amongst others, that the 2003/04 and 2004/05 budgets are the most expansionary since 1994. The idea is to make sure that we intensify the roll-out of basic services provision as an intervention to address poverty and improve the standard of living of all our people. Even more importantly, the additional resources we have will be used to provide the much needed growth dynamic.
We have committed billions of rand of public resources to the Expanded Public Works Programme and the Municipal Infrastructure Grant. These programmes will concentrate scare capital for development projects in underdeveloped areas – thereby helping us to meet the challenge of ameliorating the dualism in the economy.
As you can see ladies and gentlemen, we have matters of pressing and urgent necessity which must be accomplished in the short-term, and we also face challenges which compel us to adopt an approach that is necessarily long-run in its focus. We must urgently develop the capacity to redress service delivery backlogs and to improve the quality of services which are already being rendered to our people. Simultaneously, we must develop the ability to formulate and manipulate “growth-promotion policy tools” that will ensure that whatever we do, can be done in a sustainable manner.
For all these to happen, continuing attention must be paid to the task of channelling the hopes and aspirations of the population into the political process. Care must be taken to achieve a solidly structured political mobilisation of the population. Only in this way, shall we empower our people not only to call for debates with government, but also to make inputs that are sufficiently informed to shape government’s responsiveness to public opinion.
Whilst we are on this matter of public participation in matters of governance, I must remind you that at the same time last year, the national establishment rate of Ward Committees stood just above 75% - with Eastern Cape and Limpopo acting as our pace-setters then. On the occasion of the inaugural awards, we implored you to ensure improvements in this important area of our work. This time I have the pleasure to report that overall, there is a 16% improvement in the establishment rate from last year. The provinces of Mpumalanga and Northern Cape have done well moving from 68% and 67% to 96% and 100% respectively. It is also gratifying to note that KwaZulu-Natal and Western Cape are showing a trend also of massive mobilisation towards Ward Committees. We must indeed sustain these positive trends by improving on the establishment rate of Ward Committees and by improving their functional capabilities as well as the quality of discussion they conduct.
Last year we also emphasised the need for all of us to take steps to ensure that the revenue-collection capacity of our municipalities is improved. We have often pointed out that the pile up of municipal debt has a deleterious effect on our capacity to sustain the provision of services. We are thus required to continue to work for the diffusion of the norms of civic responsibility whilst at the same time, creating the material possibility for our people to observe such norms.
Ladies and gentlemen, these issues of financial viability must continue to feature prominently on our radar-screen. My colleague, the Minister of Finance keeps reminding us that in general, the “Local Government Audit Outcomes” are telling us that financial viability is a matter which deserves a more rigorous attention. This general concern of ours notwithstanding, allow me to single out the province of KwaZulu-Natal and accord it fulsome praise. KwaZulu-Natal is our best performing province in terms of unqualified audits received by municipalities within its area of jurisdiction.
Programme Director, Ladies and Gentlemen:
The observations we have made this evening constitute a message whose profound implications must be fully understood. Local government is a complex entity which defies universal generalisation in one direction or another. Whilst we do indeed have municipalities that are struggling under the weight of challenges, we also have some municipalities that are posting impressive rates of performance! Such performances translate into upliftment of the collective quality of life of our people.
Those of us who are government practitioners have come to understand that change and transformation are negotiated processes that cannot and should not be expected to remain faithful to neat trajectories. This explains why the development of local government has not been linear in its progression. The challenge we face is to use the ever-widening enclaves of excellence as staging-posts towards the attainment of general functional vibrancy.
Quite clearly, the process of building a viable local government system will take much more effort and expertise than was originally anticipated. However, it is a task we cannot postpone. Local government is the future to be built now – and build it now we must. As you contemplate your next step in this regard, please be assured of my best wishes for a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Issued by: Ministry of Provincial and Local Government
9 December 2004
Source: Ministry of Local and Provincial Government
Title: Mufamadi: Vuna Awards Ceremony
Speech delivered by Minister F.S Mufamadi, on the occasion of the celebration of the fourth anniversary of the new Local Government System and the 2nd Annual Vuna Awards Ceremony
9 December 2004
Programme Director, Sandy Ngema; Honourable Premiers; Deputy Minister Nomatyala Hangana; MECs from our nine provinces; The chairperson of SALGA, Councillor Amos Masondo; Mayors and councillors from all our country’s municipalities; Members of Parliament and Members of Provincial Legislatures; Traditional Leaders of our people here present; Esteemed Partners representing the Development Bank of Southern Africa, the National Productivity Institute and the South African Local Government Association; Distinguished Guests; Ladies and Gentlemen: On behalf of Deputy Minister Hangana, our partners the DBSA, NPI and SALGA, as well as in my personal behalf, I wish to register our profound sense of appreciation for the attendance of so many of you this evening. It is that time of the year when our country is replete with festive events which present all of us with the agony of choice: the difficulty of knowing which event to prioritise for attendance. By choosing to come here rather than go elsewhere, you have given us the opportunity to confirm that you and we are united in a common sense of mission. We share a commitment to open up the horizon to a better life for all.
Today, four years and four days since the inception of our new local government system, we meet to acknowledge that sufficient time has passed, and that we have gained enough insights to be able to distil lessons and experience which must be fully absorbed. Indeed, it is the attitude of the Ministry and its partners, that all our 284 municipalities have a right to put themselves forward for the accolade of “Municipal Performance Excellence”. I am informed that whereas last year 220 municipalities entered the contest confident that they were worthy of the accolade, only 156 municipalities felt confident enough to do so this year. These 156 contestants constitute 54.93% of the totality of our municipalities.
That such a substantial number of municipalities still felt confident to test themselves against the criteria which have been made more stringent, is a matter for our young democracy to be proud of. Taken together, all these cases confirm that we have a workable system of local government which ordinary people are doing their extraordinary best to refine and perfect. Much is being achieved on the ground. Our municipalities are spiralling forward along the learning curve – producing medium to long-term trends that present us with an optimistic prognosis.
I say all this because I had the benefit of going through all the detailed reports of the provincial adjudication panels. The reports tell us that each of the elements we are striving to cultivate exists in the municipalities that applied to take part in the Vuna contest; albeit with differing weights and patterns of historical evolution. Given the observation, my heart goes out in thankfulness to all the adjudicators who played midwife to all the episodes leading up to this occasion. They assembled the material which will help all our people, irrespective of the municipality in which they are resident. This material will help them to come to terms with themselves by considering the example of others.
The adjudicators were given the responsibility of identifying our icons by measuring aspiring municipalities along the following five broad dimensions: * Service delivery and infrastructure development,
* Local economic development,
* Municipal financial viability,
* Municipal transformation and institutional development, and
* Good corporate governance
Our emphasis on these “Key Performance Areas” is informed by the conviction that the local government sphere is an indispensable antidote for dealing with a syndrome of issues that constitute the most basic national challenges:
these are issues such as underdevelopment, stagnation and poverty. Accordingly, as every individual municipality improves its own performance, we enhance our nation’s institutional possibility effectively to meet those challenges.
Such is the importance we attach to local government that you would recall that on the 29th of October 2004, we launched “Project Consolidate” – a hands-on programme of support for local government. In terms of this programme, we intend to help municipalities that we identified as being in need of such help. We want to help them overcome their current difficulties of capacity constraints and to flourish into the future! It is our intention to give these municipalities access to a much larger pool of expertise in various functional areas of municipal governance. In this regard, I want to thank all our friends from private sector organisations, parastatals, SALGA as well as national and provincial government departments, who have shown willingness to make the burden lighter by sharing it with us. They have agreed to commit their time, expertise and other resources, to the process of enhancing local government’s capacity for performance.
As our friends come along into the trenches, they will find in us (public office-bearers and government officials), partners who are imbued with the passion to succeed. Our work is continuously informed by the popular feedback we receive from the people. For instance, we know that currently more than 86% of municipalities are providing free basic water and that more than 50% of the country’s households are benefiting from this government intervention. We also know that with respect to redressing electrification backlogs, we have realised more progress in the larger municipalities than in smaller and poorer municipalities. The overall picture unfortunately, is one in which all municipalities are currently providing free basic services to less beneficiaries than anticipated.
It is for this reason, amongst others, that the 2003/04 and 2004/05 budgets are the most expansionary since 1994. The idea is to make sure that we intensify the roll-out of basic services provision as an intervention to address poverty and improve the standard of living of all our people. Even more importantly, the additional resources we have will be used to provide the much needed growth dynamic.
We have committed billions of rand of public resources to the Expanded Public Works Programme and the Municipal Infrastructure Grant. These programmes will concentrate scare capital for development projects in underdeveloped areas – thereby helping us to meet the challenge of ameliorating the dualism in the economy.
As you can see ladies and gentlemen, we have matters of pressing and urgent necessity which must be accomplished in the short-term, and we also face challenges which compel us to adopt an approach that is necessarily long-run in its focus. We must urgently develop the capacity to redress service delivery backlogs and to improve the quality of services which are already being rendered to our people. Simultaneously, we must develop the ability to formulate and manipulate “growth-promotion policy tools” that will ensure that whatever we do, can be done in a sustainable manner.
For all these to happen, continuing attention must be paid to the task of channelling the hopes and aspirations of the population into the political process. Care must be taken to achieve a solidly structured political mobilisation of the population. Only in this way, shall we empower our people not only to call for debates with government, but also to make inputs that are sufficiently informed to shape government’s responsiveness to public opinion.
Whilst we are on this matter of public participation in matters of governance, I must remind you that at the same time last year, the national establishment rate of Ward Committees stood just above 75% - with Eastern Cape and Limpopo acting as our pace-setters then. On the occasion of the inaugural awards, we implored you to ensure improvements in this important area of our work. This time I have the pleasure to report that overall, there is a 16% improvement in the establishment rate from last year. The provinces of Mpumalanga and Northern Cape have done well moving from 68% and 67% to 96% and 100% respectively. It is also gratifying to note that KwaZulu-Natal and Western Cape are showing a trend also of massive mobilisation towards Ward Committees. We must indeed sustain these positive trends by improving on the establishment rate of Ward Committees and by improving their functional capabilities as well as the quality of discussion they conduct.
Last year we also emphasised the need for all of us to take steps to ensure that the revenue-collection capacity of our municipalities is improved. We have often pointed out that the pile up of municipal debt has a deleterious effect on our capacity to sustain the provision of services. We are thus required to continue to work for the diffusion of the norms of civic responsibility whilst at the same time, creating the material possibility for our people to observe such norms.
Ladies and gentlemen, these issues of financial viability must continue to feature prominently on our radar-screen. My colleague, the Minister of Finance keeps reminding us that in general, the “Local Government Audit Outcomes” are telling us that financial viability is a matter which deserves a more rigorous attention. This general concern of ours notwithstanding, allow me to single out the province of KwaZulu-Natal and accord it fulsome praise. KwaZulu-Natal is our best performing province in terms of unqualified audits received by municipalities within its area of jurisdiction.
Programme Director, Ladies and Gentlemen:
The observations we have made this evening constitute a message whose profound implications must be fully understood. Local government is a complex entity which defies universal generalisation in one direction or another. Whilst we do indeed have municipalities that are struggling under the weight of challenges, we also have some municipalities that are posting impressive rates of performance! Such performances translate into upliftment of the collective quality of life of our people.
Those of us who are government practitioners have come to understand that change and transformation are negotiated processes that cannot and should not be expected to remain faithful to neat trajectories. This explains why the development of local government has not been linear in its progression. The challenge we face is to use the ever-widening enclaves of excellence as staging-posts towards the attainment of general functional vibrancy.
Quite clearly, the process of building a viable local government system will take much more effort and expertise than was originally anticipated. However, it is a task we cannot postpone. Local government is the future to be built now – and build it now we must. As you contemplate your next step in this regard, please be assured of my best wishes for a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Issued by: Ministry of Provincial and Local Government
9 December 2004
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