Governance and Administration Cluster Briefing

Journalist: On the issue related to Local Government Turnaround Strategy is Government envisaging financial bailouts for the stressed municipalities. You talked about getting some help from stakeholders outside of Government, that has been done before but it proves that you are not willing to stay in most of the distress municipalities because they are far flung in rural areas. So are you talking about these people, deploying them there? The last question is on the Infrastructure Development Plan, you talk about review of pieces of legislation and your target I think is 213. Have you set yourself a timeframe to say in these few months we will be able to review those legislations that you say are impeding service delivery and maybe just try to 9unclear) on some of those that you think are crucial in this matter. 

Journalist: Two questions, the first relates to the 108 priority municipalities which have been identified with severe backlogs that will receive the targeted focus to bring them up to stream with the service delivery. Could you just give me an idea, some examples of those municipalities? Where are most of them located, as in which province and what kind of support will be provided to them to ensure that they do deliver sufficient services to the citizens in those areas. The second is the, I think it was the Anti-Corruption Practitioner term that I saw. Could you please describe what is an Anti-Corruption Practitioner and what exactly are they expected to do?

Journalist: Minister my question all relates to Outcome 9. First being your targeted focus and support that you are talking about that is going to be given to municipalities with large backlogs etc. How does this process differ from Project Consolidate, aren’t some of the things you are saying here part of the mandate of Project Consolidate? Can you just clarify that for us please? And then you talk about 93 0000 temporary jobs through the Community Works Programme. Can you explain to us what is the difference between the Community Works Programme and the Expanded Public Works Programme? And when you talk about 93 000 temporary jobs, can you tell us what does that translate that into in work days please? An and the question if I may, you also talk about 92% of Ward Committee that have been established, would you mind elaborating on those Ward Committees, how do they work, who establish them and what is Government’s role in establishing them?

Journalist: I just want some more information on this Babies For Rent, can you just sort of give me an indication how big of a problem is it, can we quantify it, can we give any figures, and how much is this costing SASSA?
Journalist: I just want to refer to your very first paragraph that talks to what the Cluster is about, having a better quality life for citizens etc. Would the two Ministers mind talking around the current situation in Limpopo where the school textbooks have not been delivered. I understand the opposition political party has offered to deliver these textbooks free of charge within two days, this has been turned down. These textbooks are now officially months late. I mean do your Departments not look at this, is this a concern, would you mind commenting on this issue please. The second question relates to page three, Corruption tackled effectively, Minister Baloyi I wonder if you would mind telling me in the last year how many public officials have been suspended, how many have actually been fired. I just want to get an idea of your tackling corruption, what has actually happened. A third question if I may, it is going to page two, it is talking to the number of households, etc. electricity, water. Ministers would you mind just explaining how this correlates to the fact that service delivery protest have been on the increase, a recent report said on an average of two per week. Why is there this sense of unhappiness sin the country if Government is clearly delivering? If you could just comment on those issues.

Journalist: Minister it is just about the electricity, on the outcome 9 when you say over 85 of the local households has access to electricity. Which local households, do you prefer to specific municipalities, refer to above or is that a general statement.

Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma: Of course we are a team here so the questions will be answered by the team. Maybe if I just start with the last question on electricity households. This is a general figure of the total number of households in South Africa that have electricity; it is not for any specific municipality. I think you can see that even as you drive South Africa, some of us who have driven around South Africa in the early 90’s and who still drive around South Africa now. There is a big difference when you drive at night in the rural areas, you can see lots of rural households now have electricity; it is very evident even just to anyone driving. So it is a composite figure. But of course that improvement means that those who don’t have electricity become very impatient because they can see that there is electricity everywhere, why don’t we have it and therefore their patience is running out. So sometimes success puts pressure on the Government because there are few remaining households that don’t have electricity and want to have electricity. That will be the same with water; lots of households now have access to clean water who didn’t have them before. But those who don’t have become very impatient so the delivery service protest in part are because of that, because they can see others have got why can’t we have it ourselves now. And so the last ones become very impatient and don’t want to wait. But of course that doesn’t mean that there aren’t challenges sometimes in the municipalities, in Government in delivering some of these services, it doesn’t mean that there aren’t challenges even at the national. I think we must acknowledge that a lot of these services have been delivered over the past 18 years.

I also want to just take up the question of the problem of babies. We had noticed from our side as Home Affairs that people were coming and registering babies and with our stakeholder forum. Some of the stakeholder forums came to tell us there is a problem, there are people, sometimes we even got some nurses arrested in one province who were producing these cards and giving them to people who don’t have babies, then they will get a baby with the card and go and register. But I wouldn’t say it is a large scale but we wanted to nip it from the butt so that it doesn’t spread. And of course we are working with Social Development; you know they are now reregistering some of the people who are receiving grants to make sure that this does not become a widespread practice.
I would also, I think most of the questions unfortunately go to Minister Baloyi, but fortunately he is here so we would be able to get a very direct answer. On the public works, how many days does it translate to, I think it is about 4 months so that will be about 120 days roughly. On average, some maybe a bit more some may be a bit less, but on average that is what it is. The question of the textbooks in Limpopo, I am not sure because the Minister of Education is not with us, I don’t know if anyone will be able to answer. But obviously it is a problem if textbooks have not been delivered up to June because the school started beginning of the year. So that is a problem but we can’t answer directly when this will be done. I think that question should be answered by the Minister of Basic Education, we are sorry that, unless one of the Ministers here have the answer. But I don’t have in terms of when those textbooks will be delivered. I will ask Minister Baloyi and then we will get back to the Minister of Public Service and Administration; there are a few questions the Deputy Minister that he has to respond to. Maybe the Minister of Public Administration will also deal with this issue of how many public servants have been fired or suspended. And this arose in the context of training anti-corruption practitioners. I would answer it but because the Chief of PALAMA is there I would refer it to him but otherwise I would have answered it myself. You will hear him when he answers but if you didn’t then I will do at the end. We were able to hear Cape Town at the beginning.

Minister Richard Baloyi: The Local Government Turnaround Strategy and impart will have 5 focus areas are meant to be rolled out to the entire country including those areas in the deep rural areas. We understand the point raised and Tsepo you are very right that sometimes the upper tight and the commitment and readiness for some people to go and work in the deep rural areas is not that readily sharpened. We are doing our best to address that because we are then saying ours is not to transport these interventions but ours is to empower the municipalities that are there already. So that they rise to the level of being able to address these issues as identified and of course we indicated prioritising 5. The pieces of legislation that we say have been identified to have sections that impede service delivery. And as I have indicated that we identify those sections because we are responding to those who identify these pieces of legislation. And say to the extend that they are exposed to their implication is that they impede the delivery of services. It is quite a number of sections; I have been requested here to just give examples. I think we indicated when we delivered our budget that we are putting a target of August. And that we are saying by August we will then say we have validated that indeed these sections impede service delivery and therefore include them in the least of finally responding to them whether we amend or we explain if it is a question of explanation. Or we will fail to validate and we remove them from the list. We have indicated when we delivered the budget that the onus rest with those who identify this, in other words you are saying I am supposed to be dealing with issues of service delivery but I am impeded by this section. We then put the onus to you to elaborate what exactly do you mean when it comes to that point. Then we see to the respective executive authority lead the process of responding to this section of legislation. That is what we are planning to do; there are quite a number of them. There are those who say PFMA there are some sections there that makes it difficult. There are those who are saying there is an act with a long title the Prevention of Eviction of Illegal Occupation of Land Act, I am not sure if I am quoting the short title verbatim, but it has to do with that. Some say that section itself has a serious challenge so these are by way of examples. Like I have indicated come August we then say yes we can validate in terms of facts but the issues raised suggest that we need to do something about the section. And if we fail to do that we then remove that so that you don’t remain with a backlog of over 300 pieces and you don’t find yourself finalising that.

The 108 municipalities and I am requested here to provide examples, I am not sure maybe is should recite them up to a 105. We identified 23 districts in the country that are found to be districts in distress, of course for different reasons. And one of these districts will include Mupane in Limpopo and others, by way of example I requested that how far I should go between 1-105. Now these 23 districts, in them you have 108 municipalities that are found to be in distress. We are seeing we are not only talking because when we talk about these municipalities we also know that some of them you also have traditional communities. So owe are saying it is this plus all the traditional communities that are found there, where you then say you need to do something about it.

Project Consolidate and what we are doing now accelerating the implementation of the turnaround strategy, is there any difference? The difference is actually in the content of what we are doing. You will remember that Project Consolidate I identified I think it was about 136 municipalities and then said of course there will be no differences because these are interventions that have been introduced to further improve the delivery of services, the strength of municipalities in these areas. The focus about Project Consolidate was than nationally, because you remember Project Consolidate haven’t been adopted it was saying let’s put together national departments that will be assisting in terms of consolidating, putting together efforts to assist the municipalities. Now what we are then saying because in between Project Consolidate and now there has been an assessment of Local Government. We then say what we should focus on now is to empower the municipalities through do it yourself kind of intervention. That is where you have these differences, instead of getting a group of engineers located at national and then say we deploy you there we then say we have them organised. That is why we had to come with a support mechanism to establish MISA (Municipal Infrastructure Support), so that through MISA we may role out this intervention mechanism. So if you like it is a question of stages of interventions beating up on what we said. Of course one day when I was requested to respond some said no look the Minister he came with Project Consolidate, Minister Sicheka came with Local Government Turnaround Strategy, what is yours? I said mine is to effectively implement all what remains to be done, it is a question of the implementation. It doesn’t help to go a policy or intervention shopping, what helps is to make sure that we implement. There are good things that will end. Of course it has stages of development where we will find ourselves in having to deal with these issues. The word committees, who forms them, what committees are efforts to strengthen public participation on a permanent arrangement. Instead of having a situation where the community will interact with the ward councillor only once. The community will have a platform where they raise issues, it is a community platform, of course the ward councillor is part of that.

What is the role of Government in that, firstly we facilitate the establishment, we don’t appoint ward committee members. Go to the community, convene a community meeting then the community decide who goes into play a role. The other responsibility that we have as Government is to empower these wards committees, get them to work, provide the necessary resources for them to do their work. The Minister has responded on the issue of textbooks. There was an offer, the question I was saying they offered to do something and I think those who make an offer of course they may engage with the Minister of Basic Education and take it forward.

As to how many public officials suspended, as difficult as it is to come with all the figures here, honestly maybe a commitment may suffice, the Deputy Minister of Public Service may comment on that. The commitment may suffice that we will make available through GCIS in terms of the situation when it comes to dealing with this. There is a classical saying, I won’t quote it verbatim, but the classical saying is that it is moving cars that draw attention because they roll, if you are not careful you can be knocked down. The Minister has indicated that the protests should also be understood in the context of saying this is a Government that is delivering. People have seen this Government delivering, they have seen this Government supplying electricity and the like, that is why these people will go to this Government to say please we are also here, draw attention to this moving Government in as far as the provision of services is concerned. Of course as the Minister has indicated there may be other challenges of course you find situation where infrastructure maintenance for sustained delivery of services also becomes an issue, sustained delivery of services. And that is why the intervention of saying lets come in with MISA to play a role in dealing with those issues. I think Minister these are the questions. Financial bailout, we identified 5 issues, 5 priorities, service delivery, governance, fighting corruption, and the like, infrastructure development. We will respond to each municipality or we are responding to assisting each municipality according to the need identified. When you talk about financial bailout you need to look at what exactly you are talking about. There are some municipalities that are in financial distress because they are not doing what they are supposed to do, collecting the revenue from the people., We encourage them the type of bailout should not be interpreted as if we carry bags around and say there you are, it is a question of strengthening the municipality to be able to collect the money, generate the revenue that is there. Maybe you find that the economic profile of that municipality is also challenged, that is when we attract investors to participate there. But also you might find that you find this municipality is telling, that is why we adopted a programme of Business Adopt a Municipality. So this issue of intervention is not like yes we will do it for you, it is a question of saying you can be strengthened. Even some municipalities will say no you have municipalities that are unviable; you can look at the situation, what causes the state of unviability. Is it an inherent feature, if it is an inherent feature, is it a factor of demarcation or what is the problem. If it is not an inherent feature is it a failure on the part of the municipality, what is the problem. We must work together.

Deputy Minister Ayanda Dlodlo: On the practitioner, it is like your human resources practitioner, their responsibility is to deal with human resource management and development. It would be the same with an Anti-Corruption Practitioner where their main responsibility will be to deal with the fight against corruption in Departments and throughout Government. On the number of people suspended and those fired I think Minister Baloyi has answered the question that information will be made available. As we speak there are disciplinary processes underway in Departments so that information grows each day, so we don’t have the figures as of now but we will be able to give it to you.

Minister Richard Baloyi: There is one question the difference between Community Works Programme and the Expanded Public Works Programme. The difference is that the Expanded Public Works Programme is linked to the life of the project, if it is a road project when that road comes to the end that is the life of the lifespan of the programme. With the Community Works Programme we identify a group of people, put them on a programme, they can do more than one project, digging graves, cleaning communities, making sure that the streets are well maintained at the villages or wherever. So when they are done with the project they get into the other project and stuff like that. So there is some sort of permanence in the CWP Programme that is the difference. But of course it is part of the Expanded Public Works Programme, they are linked, they are related.

Journalist: To the Deputy Minister on the issue of sport, as we prepare for London there has been this news of some of our athletes involved in issues of doping of banned substances, is this an embarrassment to our Government. What kind of proactive strategies do we have as a Department to really deal with this smatter, not reacting to the news but taking a lead in terms of making sure that our athletes really knows their responsibilities. On African issues the conference that is coming that the AU will be hosting is there conveyance within African States as to how do you want to develop this population register. There are issues of divergence in terms of our strategies from different countries and others wanting to protect their own sovereignties. So what are you hoping to achieve during this summit that is coming to South Africa and making taking advantage few weeks before we go to Addis, are you in high spirit as you prepare to go for a another fight to occupy the AU top seat.

Journalist: Minister Baloyi if you don’t mind you said you will provide the data on the amount of officials suspended and fired within the last 12 months, can I get a commitment to get those figures before 5h00 this afternoon please. Minister Dlamini-Zuma there is an issues relating to immigrants and the deportation of illegal immigrants I am not entirely sure whether this is an issue you look at but would you be able to just comment on the issue, There is speculation that up to 200 000 illegal immigrants will be deported from South Africa this year. Then a last question, it relates to new libraries, you have mentioned how many new libraries will be build, how many libraries have been closed in the last year, I understand that there have been a number of those as well. The Minister Baloyi looking at electricity, Eskom has announced last week that they will be going to NERSA for new tariff increases at the end of the year and the indications are these increases will be significantly quite high over the next 5 years. How much of a concern is this given the state of municipal finances and if I may there has been worries about the payment about electricity bills in particular and Eskom has also indicated in their statements that a lot of monies are outstanding from municipalities in particular. Could you just give us an idea what you are doing to address these concerns, how worried are you about pending electricity increases. Can we actually afford any further increases as we have been seeing 25% per year on average increases at the moment municipalities are struggling to pay? How concerned are you about this going forward.

Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma: I don’t know how many libraries have been closed but I know 80 will be opened and 50 will be renovated. So maybe when you meet with the Minister of Arts and Culture at some stage you can ask how many have been closed but I am not aware of how many are closed, but they can’t be that much. On the question of deportation of illegal immigrants, I can’t comment on a figure because we deport people who come to our country illegally. Now I have no idea how many people are going to come to our country illegally, so for me now to say we will be deporting so many really it will be pure speculation. So we deport them as they come, if nobody comes illegally in our country between now and then it will be good news so I have no figure to give you.

In terms of the conference, actually there is convergence on this matter because the first conference that took place too place 2 years ago in Addis where African countries realised that they don’t have population registers they only deal with their population when there is a census. If they have a 10 year census then that is the only information they have and in between they don’t. So there is consensus that we need to do something about that because even just for planning purposes a Government needs to know in 6 years’ time or 7 years’ time when children go to school at least in South Africa we will have a pretty good idea how many kids will be starting school in 7 years’ time because we register children who are born. More than 90% now are registered within their first year of birth. So it is a very important thing and there is convergence. But what is important is that what happens also is sharing of best practice because there are some countries that have been doing this for a long time. Countries like Mauritius, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Egypt and many others, so we are able to share even how we reach rural areas and so on. So it is a very interesting conference, I attended it 2 years ago and then they asked us to host the next one. So I think there will be no problems of divergence on this one. Am I in high spirit for the fight? I thrive on challenges that are what keeps you going, that is what keeps you young, you get bored when there are no challenges. So for me it is just one more challenge, you win them, you lose them so I am in high spirit and I will be in high spirit when I come back irrespective.

Minister Richard Baloyi: I am sure that you are aware that we established an independent authority called the National Electricity Regulatory Authority of South Africa (NERSA) and that issues around the tariff reviews are issues that fall squarely under the authorities. Of course Eskom has a role to play in as far as dealing with this aspect. Both Eskom and NERSA are alive to the challenges in the areas they operate, so when they come to a final determination and say this is the figure for sure they consider all factors. The question as to whether we are worried or not I think we maybe we better say as the question said the tariff review will be done soon. We just speculate because last time it was 25% so it will be higher. If we begin to answer questions on speculations I think it becomes a very serious challenge, and knowing that the authorities involved will consider the factors because they operate in these situations they know what is going on. Maybe one can then say let’s cross that bridge when we arrive there, then we will address this. The question also said something needs to be done. The Deputy Minister of Public Service has indicated that at times like we are busy here you will find that figures change. Maybe we can appeal to the question that there is live after 5h00, this Government will still be there, and the people of South Africa will still be there. So let’s be patient with the understanding with no matter what happens when you talk about these things is the quality of information. You can’t compromise quality because there is this magical 5h00 that is coming, I think lets respond and give quality information that will be good for South Africa.

Asking the question on electricity reminds me that there is a question that was asked on electricity that I did not respond to when we then said we will give a person (unclear), the question was which are these people. In that report we have indicated that majority of them are in the rural areas so that is the situation. Of course you don’t have with you here a list of those, I mean inception not actually here to date figures or information in terms of which village or township got into that but we said majority of them are in the rural areas so that is the information we want to give.

Journalist:  Minister Baloyi James again I wonder if you would mind giving me an indication when I can expect the figures, next week, perhaps Monday. I would like to just have an idea when we can expect it; I don’t want to wait maybe until next year. Just a last follow-up I you will allow me I am terribly sorry. Why I am these electricity related questions also relates to the service delivery protests. Minister Dlamini-Zuma you have indicated that one of the reasons for protests is because of people not having what others have. Surely both of you would have to admit that another major reason for protests is increasing tariffs. People have electricity but it gets cut off and this is going to be increasing if electricity tariffs increase at all. And this is going to lead to further protests which are why I am asking these questions; surely that is a cause for concern.

Deputy Minister Gert Oosthuizen: Thank you very much, I was asked the question on doping. Now you may be aware that we do have the South African Institute for Drug free Sport that we have in every big event, a campaign about great awareness about the dangers of doping. Creating awareness of substances that are not necessarily banned but if you take it that there may be a banned substance in it and you end up using something that you are not aware of that may have a banned substance in it. We have said no to doping campaigns very actively, we have doubled the testing, there is a whole range and a whole protocol of engaging with athletes as they prepare to go to the Olympic and Paralympic Games to ensure that with the help of the South African Institute of Drug Free Sport (SAIDFS) and SASCOC and our Department that only do we create awareness but actively support our athletes. So if you refer to the person, and I don’t want to go there, but if you refer to the person who won the Comrades Marathon and the fact that one sample was tested but the B sample not as yet I would rather request that we refrain from speculating and wait for the process to complete.

Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma: Maybe just Cape Town, on the service delivery protests maybe COGTA should just do a survey but from my recollection it is more about water. Many of those are about water; I don’t remember any on tariffs persay. Maybe and if more of them are on water it correlates with what we have delivered on water. We have delivered 74% whereas on electricity it is 85%. I think instead of us speculating whether it is about tariffs or not maybe we should do a kind of survey on what the major problems are but in my recollection it is more about water. So you still want to comment?

Minister Richard Baloyi: The Minister is quite right, as this Government introduce a policy we call Indigent and these policy is meant to offset the negative impact. Where you will find a situation like tariff increase but people’s level of affordability becomes a problem, threshold for indigent it is very clear. And of course you are quote right Minister as you say provided we have been and continue to engage with people when they deal with these issues of protests and stuff like that. We are not saying that you might find but it is rare the issue of after comes to be at the centre. You people even when they deal with issues of payment of electricity like we said they are quite aware, if you are in the indigent register then we address those issues accordingly. But as the Minister has indicated we do an overview and then provide it.

Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma: The other thing I wanted to add on was what the Deputy Minister of Public Service has spoken about the Anti-Corruption Practitioners. I think in our Departments we do have people who are dedicated to dealing with, who are just dealing with anti-corruption. So I think that is where that comes from but also they are training. So it is important to understand that we are not finding corruption by chance there are people who are looking at that. But they are also looking at what are the issues within each Department that maybe loopholes that need to be closed or areas that encourage corruption. For instance I will tell you, I will just give an example, at Home Affairs we found that when people were engaged in fraudulent issuing if documents like birth certificates and so on we were initially just using the user name for people to enter the programme. Then we realised that there were actually syndicates within the Department, so you will find a group of people, one goes on leave and leaves the user name with the syndicate people that they work with. So when they are doing normal work they use their user name, when they are involved in these fraudulent they use the other person. Then when you follow you come to the conclusion that these acts were committed by this person and this person proves I was in Swaziland on holiday I was not in the office at all and then you end there you can’t move further to get to the point. Now we are using both the user name and your finger print, now you can’t leave your fingerprint with others. But these are the things you discover as the people who deal with anti-corruption look at all these issues then they realise there is a loophole that must be closed. So I am just giving that example. Thank you

Professor LS Molo(Director General from Palama): It is just to amplify what the Minister has just said and thank you for allowing me this opportunity. There is a requirement in every Department to develop a minimum anti-corruption capacity and I just want to clarify why this training is necessary. There is a minimum in every requirement that there is a requirement that there should be that minimum anti-corruption capacity. And that is why in terms of the figures that are provided by (unclear) you would realise that there was a concerted effort where we accelerated training that in the previous year we trained 954 but because of that focus we have now trained 1018 officials that we capacitated in those requirements. These are officials who become watchdogs in the Department and they focus on ethics management for an example to ensure that we are able to fight this particular scourge of corruption. That is why also in that light there is a set of guidelines that have been drafted. Those guidelines are number one on remunerative work on the public servants outside Government and also there is a draft guideline that we have done on governance of ethics in the public service. All those are done as a way of implementing the public sector integrity management framework.

END OF MEDIA BRIEFING