Keynote address by the North West MEC for Developmental Local Government and Housing Howard Yawa at the South African Local Government Association (SALGA) National Assembly, Mafikeng Civic Centre

The Executive Mayor of Mafikeng
Councillor Mosa Sejosingoe
Chairperson of South African Local Government Association (Salga), Councillor Desmond van Rooyen
District Mayors
Executive Mayors and Mayors
Councillors
Officials
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen
Programme director, good morning

I am humbled to be invited to address the provincial members' assembly here today. What impresses me most is the fact that your gathering will deal with, among others, the Five Year Local Government Strategic Agenda and councillor support issues which are key in our delivery system.

During the State of the Province Address, Premier Edna Molewa highlighted the critical aspects of what all of us involved in local government work should be engaged in during this period when she said: "As provincial government, we need to increase our pace and act more actively in order to ensure the institutionalisation and sustainability of the hands-on approach to supporting local government. It should be acknowledged that the sustainable institutionalisation of the hands-on approach is dependent on how we act within the context of a developmental state."

In essence, what the Premier was saying was that we must adopt a 'Business Unusual' approach as articulated by President Thabo Mbeki during his State of the Nation Address, when dealing with local government issues.

This framework takes into cognisance the fact that we cannot approach our work in the usual fashion, there must be urgency in what we do and in how we do things.

Programme director, we need to accelerate our pace of doing things and speed up issues as they relate to the delivery of services like water, electricity, sanitation, waste refuse as well as the strengthening of our efforts to create more jobs and better jobs which are sustainable at the same time.

Our rate of speeding up the delivery of houses to millions of our people has to be underpinned by the ethos and spirit of Business Unusual.

We are gathering here today at a time when most of our municipalities are grappling with many challenges, including the issue of lack of capacity, especially in critical areas such as technical, finance, artisanal as well as project management. Municipalities are also faced by a challenge of not dealing adequately with the management of their finances.

As a result of this, some municipalities cannot perform their functions adequately of providing basic services to our communities; at times this has sparked some of the protest marches and disturbances that we see in some municipalities.

What we are doing is constantly under scrutiny by both the public and the media. Whatever progress and efforts we are making at local government tends to be overshadowed by this negative publicity.

We are re-visiting all our strategies in an effort to create accountable and caring local government, which is infused by the concept of service to the people.

Programme director, the department conducted a performance assessment audit on all municipalities in the province last year, and identified municipalities to be targeted as a matter of priority for interventions.

The results depict a clear picture of the extent of the challenges that the municipalities are facing. The truth is that some of our municipalities still do not have credible integrated development plans (IDP) and as a result, communities are likely to distance themselves from any development that takes place in their localities.

Unfortunately, there is no shortcut to this process. We can never continue to preach participatory democracy if our communities are still not part of developmental processes in their localities. The sporadic community unrests we are experiencing in some parts of the province are mostly due to the fact that our communities are not aware of the developments taking place in the areas.

We cannot continue to preach about a democratic and developmental local government system when we do not practice what we are talking about, because in essence the developmental nature of our local government system calls for people's participation.

Our communities need to be part of the decisions and shaping the direction of their municipalities, or they may not buy-in, into municipal processes. We must understand that while development is critical, how that development comes about is also as important.

Ladies and gentlemen, most of you will be aware of my working sessions with some municipalities in the past weeks. I can confess today that these sessions have been very beneficial in that they have given me a clear picture of the challenges that municipalities are grappling with.

As the department, we are now able to come up with intervention strategies that are tailor-made for each specific municipality that will address these challenges. These interventions are not a one size fits all type of interventions.

They look at the concrete reality and concrete conditions of each municipality and respond to them. The solutions that also come out of these working sessions are also negotiated and agreed upon by the municipality as well the department. Part of the solutions will also need the involvement of SALGA in our province as our partner.

Ladies and gentlemen, the assessment indicates that the financial management of our municipalities is in an undesirable state, with only four (4) unqualified audits, one (1) qualified, one (1) adverse and a disturbing nineteen (19) disclaimers for the financial year 2006/07.

The causes for this state of finances range from general non-compliance to legislation, bad decision making with negative financial implications and unattended queries of the previous audits. These suggest an attack on good governance. Do we really want to be part of this attack? Not me.

Ladies and gentlemen, I have noted during my interaction with municipalities that the administrative and political interface is still a challenge. We collectively need to work on best models on how to improve this aspect. I want to appeal to all of you to re-orientate yourselves on your roles and responsibilities in your municipality.

Let us resist the temptation to play dual roles as it has the potential to strain relations and compromise good governance. Let us allow managers to manage the administration and councillors to manage policy development and implementation through their oversight responsibilities.

Officials must remain officials and stay away from projecting any features of being politicians, respect the office you are occupying and conduct yourselves appropriately, adhering to good ethics and maintaining high level of professionalism.

Let today's discussions craft ways and means of making local government to work to the advantage of our communities. Most importantly, let us discuss ways of making sure that all our stakeholders play their different roles in local government in order to meet the social and economic needs of the masses.

But despite all the challenges that we face at a local government level, there is reason to believe that we are on track when it comes to the delivery of basic services to our people.

The final results of Statistics South Africa's Community Survey, are a proof of that fact, for instance:

* 90 percent of households have access to piped water
* 82,3 percent use electricity as a source of domestic power
* 57,1 percent of our people have access to refuse removal
* 90,1percent have access to sanitation above Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) standards.

We need to build on these achievements and even do much better going forward. As part of our contributions at the level of supporting councillors in their day to day functions, the department, in partnership with the national Housing Department, has developed a programme of councillor training on housing policy matters, so that the councillors will be in a position to understand all the issues that have to do with the new direction on housing policies and direction. This includes an in-depth understanding of the Breaking New Ground approach to housing as well as other new developments.

There is also a programme that will train ward councillors and ward committees on a number of areas including negotiating skills, conflict resolution, communication skills, and many other skills organised by the department in partnership with the South African Local Government Association (Salga), Government Communications and Information System (GCIS) and Department of Provincial and Local Government (DPLG).

On the issue of the single public service, there are processes that are well underway that seek to achieve that objective, which we support. Discussions and studies have been done by government and are ongoing to ensure that we achieve that objective. This will make it easier for public servants to move from one sphere of government to the other. This will also alleviate the capacity challenges that most municipalities are facing. It will help municipalities to attract and retain scarce skills.

As you begin your deliberations at this important Provincial Members Assembly of Salga, I would like to remind you of what the Minister of Public Service and Administration, Geraldine Fraser Moleketi said on public service and I want you to reflect deeply on her words when she said:

"There is no more important an issue in South Africa than improving the delivery of public services. An efficient, equitable and accountable public service is the hallmark of any democratic society. In view of South Africa's poor democratic history, the public service's transformation process has two distinct aims, firstly to improve the delivery of services to all people and secondly, to demonstrate that South Africa has become a truly democratic society.

May I take this opportunity to wish you a successful members' assembly, looking forward to interact with the resolutions which will form integral part of our work.

I thank you. Ke a leboga. Enkosi.

Issued by: Department of Local Government and Housing, North West Provincial Government
29 February 2008