SALGA 2008/09 Annual Report

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Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs

02 November 2009
Chairperson: Mr L Tsenoli (ANC)
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Meeting Summary

The South African Local Government Association reported that the Auditor-General was unable to express an opinion on the fair presentation of SALGA's financial position and results of operations for the 2008/09 financial year. The KwaZulu-Natal Local Government Association’s unilateral termination of the Memorandum of Agreement between SALGA and itself was the primary cause of the disclaimer in the audit opinion of the Auditor-General. The national and eight provincial offices received clean audits in the year under review. The disclaimer was attributed solely to KWANALOGA.

SALGA discussed its action plan to address the Auditor-General's findings. SALGA would continue to engage with KWANALOGA in order to resolve the impasse. The recent SALGA National Executive Committee Lekgotla had set up a task team to deal with the matter and would report back to the NEC in November 2009. The matter had been escalated to all relevant spheres of influence for a speedy resolution. Other concerns included the instability in Local Government, service delivery protests, whether the turn-around strategy proposed by the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs would restore confidence in local government, the impact of the global recession on municipalities and the impact of proposed electricity price hikes.

On close questioning by the Committee, it was established that the SALGA and KWANALOGA were on the path to reconciliation and that they would be one body by 2011. The Office of the Auditor-General was invited by SALGA’s board chairperson to attend the next National Executive Committee SALGA meeting so all the issues could be properly addressed so as to avoid another disclaimer in 2009/10. SALGA explained that their move from a federal to unitary structure was in order to achieve clean audits at provincial level.

The Committee asked for comment on the reports of irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure within SALGA. The Committee noted that SALGA’s plan for 50% representation of women in local government by 2011 and asked how SALGA would monitor this. They asked about the effectiveness of SALGA’s Internal Audit Committee. The Committee also addressed the training of councilors and asked how SALGA followed up to see the effectiveness of the training. The devolution of primary health care to municipalities was discussed. Those that had capacity had to be allowed to handle primary health care. The Committee wanted to see the Memorandum of Understanding, as one matter that hampered service delivery was the relationship between traditional leaders and the councilors. They wanted to see how the Memorandum addressed this relationship, as the National House of Traditional Leaders assisted with rural development. It was important that traditional leaders had an understanding of what role was identified for them so they could participate in rural development.

The Committee also discussed backlogs, SALGA employee-related costs increasing by 28%, and that SALGA's Apex priorities did not show much on the generation of employment and the crisis in the affordability of electricity generated by Eskom. The Committee found it strange that SALGA thought the increase in electricity tariffs could constitute a windfall gain for distributing municipalities as long as municipalities could sustain a constant margin on electricity trading at around 10% of sales. This increase would bankrupt consumers. Members asked what SALGA was doing to capacitate itself so that it did not have to rely so much on consultants. Members from all parties were very dissatisfied and warned SALGA was expecting R100 million from municipalities as levies and they were also going to get money from the Department. It was therefore important that SALGA gave value for money. It was good to employ personnel, but it was worrying that SALGA seemed to be becoming “top heavy”.
The Committee warned that SALGA had to be more effective and proactive in building capacity in municipalities.  SALGA had to “give value for money”.


Meeting report

South African Local Government Association (SALGA) 2008/09 Annual Report
Mr Xolile George, Chief Executive Officer: South African Local Government Association (SALGA), spoke about SALGA’s role, mandate, governance structures and five-year strategic path. He stated that SALGA had undergone profound institutional changes in the year under review. Its strategic objectives were to improve its capacity so that it could support and advise its members, facilitate engagement with relevant stakeholders, and effectively represent members as the employer.

In terms of systems and resources, a Performance Management System was implemented and a Performance Management and Remuneration Panel were established. There was a greater synergy between strategic planning, business planning, budgeting and performance management. A clear articulation of responsibilities and accountabilities between SALGA and its provincial offices were necessary. The Organisational Review provided the basis for an administration that was better defined and executed in an integrated fashion. SALGA national office had been -involved in organisation-wide strategy development and SALGA provincial offices interpreted the SALGA strategy and ensured alignment of provincial, tactical and operational plans to the organisation-wide strategy. SALGA developed a national business plan for the 2008/09 financial year in line with the Integrated SALGA Business Planning Policy Framework that was developed and implemented.

In terms of capacity building, 400 of the 471 individuals registered for the executive leadership municipal development programme graduated. SALGA trained 8794 councilors through the councilor development programme and 1550 ward committees received training through SALGA.

SALGA enhanced its engagement with its stakeholders including increased participation in Inter-Governmental Relations (IGR) structures. They conducted assessments on the possible impact of the 2009 national and provincial elections and the 2011 local government elections. SALGA had developed a comprehensive submission on councilor support and continued to advocate for and lead in the advancement of women in local government. The institution was planning a 50/50 gender campaign for the 2011 Local Government Elections.

SALGA also had an advisory role and had made inputs into the position paper on the delivery of primary health care services by local government as well as a position paper on the devolution of the housing function to municipalities. SALGA also developed a discussion document on Legislation and Guidelines for Municipal Planning and Performance Monitoring.

Financial Performance
SALGA's financial statements showed an operating deficit of R8.5 million caused mainly by a charge of R18 million for the provision for the impairment of trade receivables with R14 million of this amount necessitated by developments surrounding the KZN province. In comparing the 2008/09 financial performance to the 2007/08 performance, membership levies increased by 10%, government grants increased by 62%, programme costs decreased by 10% and employee related costs increased by 28%.

The Auditor-General was unable to express an opinion on the fair presentation of SALGA's financial position and results of operations for the 2008/09 financial year. The unilateral termination of the Memorandum of Agreement between SALGA and KWANALOGA by SALGA KZN was the primary cause of the disclaimer in the audit opinion of the Auditor-General. The national and eight provincial offices received clean audits in the year under review. The disclaimer was attributed solely to KZN.

SALGA discussed its action plan to address the Auditor-General's findings. SALGA would continue to engage with KWANALOGA in order to resolve the impasse. The recent National Executive Committee (NEC) Lekgotla set up a task team to deal with the matter and would report back to the NEC in November 2009. The matter was escalated to all relevant spheres of influence for a speedy resolution. The non-resolution of the KZN matter was still an issue. Other concerns included the instability in Local Government, service delivery protests, whether the turn-around strategy proposed by the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs would restore confidence in local government, the impact of the global recession on municipalities and the impact of proposed electricity price hikes.

The SALGA Apex priorities for 2009/10 were aligned to the 2009 electoral mandate. Some of the priorities focused on the human development strategy, profiling local government, lobbying and advocating all relevant policies and legislation, stimulating local economies and consolidating SALGA's internal change agenda. Municipalities had a pivotal role to play in stimulating growth of local economies and ensuring the benefits were shared, halving poverty and unemployment to create social cohesion, and providing universal access to electricity, water and sanitation in decent community settlements.

A SALGA NEC Lekgotla was held from the 28 to 30 September 2009. Some of the outcomes were that a position paper would be written that detailed SALGA's response to some National Treasury proposals for consideration by the Minister of Finance. SALGA supported the implementation of a stimulus package for municipalities, SALGA had to develop guidelines to eradicating abuse of state resources and there was a need to focus on and create more resources to deal with the new global agenda relative to climate change.

SALGA had received Eskom's proposed revenue application for a Multi-Year Price Determination for 2010/11 – 2012/13. SALGA then met with Eskom to clarify various matters and commenced a process of gathering more information from municipalities in order to better understand the impact of the proposal. On the face of Eskom's proposed tariff increase, the MYPD2 (Multi-Year Price Determination 2) period could constitute a windfall gain for distributing municipalities if municipalities were able to sustain a constant margin on electricity trading at round 10% of sales. Municipalities would face pressure from stakeholders to restrain increases in retail tariffs. They might also see an escalation of non-payment due to affordability problems and business failures.  

Discussion
Mr P Smith (IFP) asked the officials from SALGA and SALGA KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) to explain what the problems were between the two entities.

Mr Amos Masondo, Chairperson of SALGA, stated that he had been talking to colleagues in KZN and they had taken the decision that they would be needed to come to Parliament from time to time to talk about matters concerning experiences they had in the province.

Ms F Boshigo (ANC) asked if they had come with their own report.

The Chairperson stated that SALGA's report showed progress in discussing and resolving issues with KZN. KZN's presence at the meeting was part of the implementation of the agreement that KZN would progressively dissolve back in to SALGA.

Mr Patrick Khoza, a member of SALGA KZN, stated that the two institutions had come before the Committee as one team; a unity structure. SALGA KZN learnt their lesson and knew there would be hiccups along the way to resolving the matter. However, the matter was resolved and the two organisations were now “one big family”.

Mr Masondo stated that the two organisations were working as one team. Sometimes conflict was natural between two entities, but the best way was to handle it properly, which they had. They discussed the issues with SALGA executives and agreed to work things out and let SALGA work as one team. It was a matter regarding policy and administration, but they were busy working it out and managing problems harmoniously.  

Mr Smith stated that it was delightful that both entities were working together; however, the Committee still wanted to know what the conflict had been about that resulted in the Auditor-General giving SALGA a disclaimer in their Annual Report. 

Mr Masondo explained that a misunderstanding had developed between SALGA National and SALGA KZN. It centered on a decision that was taken at a SALGA conference. SALGA KZN came to the conference to say that they needed until 2011 to resolve conflicts in KZN before they could become fully integrated into SALGA National. The decision was referred to the National Executive Committee (NEC) of SALGA. The situation was handled fairly well, but over time there were administrative problems. These problems led to a situation where an idea began to develop that perhaps SALGA KZN would go a separate route to SALGA National. Many discussions were held over a long period of time and it was concluded that the best way to manage SALGA was to operate under one roof and be one organisation. After 2011, SALGA KZN would be fully integrated in to SALGA National.

Mr J Matshoba (ANC) asked why SALGA KZN had left SALGA National in the first place.

Mr Masondo stated that SALGA KZN never really left. They were in the process of leaving; however, the issues had been resolved.

Mr W Doman (DA) stated that according to legislation, a metro in a province had to determine which body was recognised. Most of the metros in the country were ANC based; however, he knew that many of the metros in KZN were IFP based. However, in this case, it was not a political issue; the issue was more about the governance by SALGA National. 

Ms Molokoane-Machika, Deputy Chairperson of SALGA, stated that after the SALGA September conference, they took the decision that they would leave SALGA KZN as it was (not integrated), but that a Memorandum of Understanding had to be signed between national and KZN SALGA. The KZN representative was sitting in national SALGA meetings. Due to that particular conference resolution to leave SALGA KZN as is until 2011, there were a number of issues raised by provinces relating to delegations. Therefore, a delegation framework was developed at the last lekgotla that SALGA had.

The Chairperson stopped Ms Molokoane-Machika and said that he needed to clarify that previously the entities existed in a federal-like structure and a decision was taken to become a unitary structure. The question was what the implications were of this decision and which decisions should be taken at a national and provincial level. SALGA KZN said they wanted an opportunity to stay separate until 2011 when they could resolve all the issues in the province. They would then be absorbed into the national SALGA, which would be a unitary structure.

Ms Molokoane-Machika stated that there were some administrative hiccups because SALGA wanted to take all the power but also allocate some power to the provinces so that uniform systems could be developed and clean audits could be achieved. Before, clean audits could not be achieved because different provinces had different auditing processes. Administratively, all the provinces would be audited by and accountable to national SALGA. The issues of power and delegations were resolved by developing a framework that all provinces could follow.

Mr Khoza added that a lot of the conflicts arose from administrative issues. There were approximately 61 municipalities in KZN and a certain budget was needed from the national SALGA. The budget from SALGA had to be proportionate to what these municipalities were contributing to SALGA. SALGA KZN wanted to run its own campaign relating to aligning itself with the processes for clean audits and it was not getting what it was supposed to. The entities had met and resolved the issue. The two were working together to align SALGA KZN with the processes of clean audits.

Mr Smith then asked why the Auditor-General was unable to complete SALGA's audits given that everybody seemed to be cooperating. He asked why KZN was not forthcoming with what the Auditor-General required to complete the audit.

Ms Molokoane-Machika stated that it was because of the “non-contribution” from SALGA KZN to SALGA that SALGA received a disclaimer in its audit.

Mr Masondo stated that the question of access to KZN's financials was an issue that had to be followed up as matters were being resolved between the two entities. There was an agreement now that they would be working together as a unitary body. There was a commitment to
normalise the situation.

Ms Molokoane-Machika added that there was an agreement that the Auditor-General could now audit the books of KZN.

Mr Khoza stated that SALGA KZN's books were now being looked at and everything was under control.

Mr Frans Joubert, Business Executive: Office of the Auditor-General, stated that KZN's attempted “breakaway” from SALGA had a huge impact on the audit of SALGA. He was not sure if SALGA KZN was a separate entity and therefore did not know what the audit outcome was going to be. He was not sure if they approached Treasury to get approval for their own bank account. Everything in SALGA KZN belonged to the national SALGA in terms of their agreement. The worst scenario was that if SALGA KZN did not receive approval from the Minister, everything they received and paid would be regarded as irregular expenditure. The Auditor-General would have to look at the approval from the NEC to give SALGA KZN approval to breakaway from National SALGA for 2011. If the matter were not resolved by the end of the financial year, it would have another impact on SALGA's audit report. He advised SALGA to resolve the matter as soon as possible.

Mr Khoza stated that there was just an administrative issue and the two entities were working together to resolve the misunderstanding.

Mr Masondo invited Office of the Auditor-General to the next NEC SALGA meeting so all the issues could be properly addressed and understood.

Mr Doman looked at page 133 of the Annual Report. There were reports of irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure. He asked SALGA to comment on the problems they had.

Mr George referred the Committee to page 216 of the Annual Report. This clarified the areas of irregular and wasteful expenditure.

Ms Josephine Meyer, Chief Financial Officer, stated that just over R2 million of the expenditure related to finance leases. When SALGA was first established they entered into certain leases. There was an interest portion and a capital repayment portion. The interest portion was categorised as irregular expenditure. On an annual basis, institutions had to write to the National Treasury to condone this irregular expenditure. SALGA had not heard back from the Treasury yet.

Mr Smith stated that he still did not understand why it was categorised as fruitless or irregular expenditure if SALGA was buying an asset.

Ms Meyer stated that it was like buying an asset on hire purchase. You had to pay back the capital portion as well as the interest portion. The Public Finance Management Act (PFMA) defined fruitless expenditure as expenditure that could have been avoided. Every year there was an interest portion as a repayment back on the asset. Treasury deemed this fruitless expenditure and SALGA had to apply for them to condone it.

Mr Smith stated that page 133 of the Annual Report spoke about fruitless and wasteful expenditure incurred as a result of interest and penalties on late payments. He presumed it was SALGA's culpability in not paying their bills on time. 

Ms Meyer stated that the KZN issue came with challenges regarding SALGA's cash flow constraints. This resulted in SALGA paying its PAYE payment late for two months and that was the penalties on this.

Ms M Segale-Diswai (ANC) noted that the presentation stated that a gender action plan was developed to monitor the processes so that there would be a 50% representation of women in the institution by 2011. She asked how they would monitor this.

Ms Molokoane-Machika stated that the idea of 50% women representation was a debate and initiative of SALGA and Women in Local Government. SALGA launched the initiative and managed to have several meetings with political parties on what their role would be in ensuring 50% women representation in local and national government. A women’s conference was held in Bloemfontein and it was decided that a Women’s Commission would be established, as SALGA was championing women’s issues on the continent; not just South Africa.

Ms Segale-Diswai stated that the only way that parties could comply with the initiative was if they changed their constitutions. For example, the DA’s constitution did not speak to gender representation; therefore it was a futile exercise to discuss the gender initiative with the DA. SALGA had to help change parties constitutions.

Ms Molokoane-Machika stated that it was not possible for SALGA to do so as they were lobbyists. SALGA was going to push the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs to amend the Electoral Act and to push for 50-50 representation in the Act.

Mr M Nonkonyana (ANC) noted that SALGA's finances had been an issue in the past. He found it strange (page 129 of the Annual Report) that there were eight meetings held by the Audit Committee and the Chairperson of that committee only attended five. This made him wonder if the Audit Committee was functioning properly. He asked SALGA to brief the Committee on the effectiveness of SALGA's internal Audit Committee.

Mr George directed Members to page 129 of the Annual Report, which showed that the Audit Committee met five times during the period under review. Out of those, the Chairperson of the committee attended all five. Out of the five members there was a quorum of three members at each meeting. There were new members indicated in the Report that replaced outgoing members. The Auditor-Genera was satisfied by the effectiveness of the Audit Committee. Page 135 of the Annual Report showed that SALGA had an internal audit function in operation throughout the financial year and that it substantially fulfilled its responsibilities for the year.

Mr Nonkonyana noted that there were only two out of five members that attended all the meetings. He also noted that weaknesses of control were reported from the reports issues by the Internal Audit Function and management letters of the Auditor-General, and that internal audit completed only six of the thirteen focus areas that were identified and approved in the annual internal audit plan.

Mr George stated that they had explained to the Committee already at the beginning of the year and at the last financial year that SALGA had capacity constraints in setting up an internal audit function. A new internal audit committee was established, capacity constraints were resolved and the committee was now able to execute most of its functions. 

Ms D Nlhengethwa (ANC) addressed the training of counselors. She asked if SALGA followed up to see if the skills attained from the training course was plowed back in to the provinces. She also focused on primary health care. The devolution of primary health care to municipalities has been an issue for a while. Those that had capacity had to be allowed to take over. She wondered what would happen to those municipalities that did not have the capacity. Municipalities in rural areas were not getting what they were supposed to get. She stated that she wanted to see the Memorandum of Understanding, as one of the things that hampered service delivery was the relationship between traditional leaders and the councilors. She wanted to see how the Memorandum addressed this relationship, as the National House of Traditional Leaders (NHLT) assisted with rural development.

Ms Molokoane-Machika addressed the primary health care issue. She stated that SALGA was looking at the capacity of municipalities and provinces. Those that had the capacity could do it.

The Chairperson stated that SALGA had to be more effective and assertive. Municipalities were not born with capacity. They needed the finances to build that capacity. SALGA had to be more proactive in building capacity in municipalities that needed it.

Ms Nlhengethwa stated that if the country went the route proposed by SALGA, they would wait forever for rural areas to be capacitated.

Ms Molokoane-Machika stated that SALGA wanted to see capacity in all municipalities, especially those in rural areas.

Mr Masondo stated that the Memorandum of Agreement had already been signed. SALGA was just looking at the implementation of the agreement. SALGA wanted to build strong relationships between traditional Leaders and councilors, as well as the local communities. There was no need for competition between traditional leaders and councilors, they had to cooperate and work together.  

Nkosi Z Mandela (ANC) stated that traditional leaders played a critical role in rural development and they were limited in terms of resources. He wanted an understanding of what role was identified for them so they could participate in rural development and how they would be funded for this role.

Mr Lance Joel, Chief Operating Officer, explained that the Memorandum of Understanding had a number of interventions such as training for traditional leadership, the role that traditional leadership would play in a number of programmes implemented by municipalities and the role that traditional leaders would play in reducing poverty. The implementation plan was quite detailed and dealt with a number of interventions. SALGA would provide the Committee with documentation that would assist the Committee with its engagement with these issues as or when they arise in the Committee.

Mr Smith stated that SALGA had made a lot of reference to other documents and it would be useful for the Committee to get hold of these as it would empower the Members. He addressed training and capacity building. He noted that SALGA trained 1550 ward committees. He wondered what follow up SALGA did to ensure their training was effective. He noted that a statement was made by SALGA saying that there would be a great opportunity in 2011 to eradicate backlogs. He asked them to explain this statement. He wondered if the statement had to do with solving capacity constraints or if SALGA anticipated receiving large financial resources. He looked at page 24 of the presentation that showed that the membership levy would be increasing to R110 million, programming costs would be decreasing and that employee related costs would be increasing by 28%. 28% was a big amount. He asked SALGA to clarify this. He thought that a top priority in the country was to deal with unemployment; however, SALGA's Apex priorities did not show much regarding the generation of employment. He noted that there was a crisis in the affordability of electricity generated by Eskom (page 37 of the presentation). SALGA thought the increase in tariffs could constitute a windfall gain for distributing municipalities if municipalities could sustain a constant margin on electricity trading at around 10% of sales. This was a huge issue for consumers, as they were going to be “nailed” and bankrupted by this. He found it frightening that municipalities were going to gain from this and he did not think it was appropriate in this crisis of affordability.

Ms Molokoane-Machika addressed the matter of monitoring and evaluation of training and capacity building. She stated that SALGA was working with organisations like the Sector Education Training Authorities (SETAs) to monitor capacity and training. Some of the major programmes that were running intended to improve municipal financial viability, sustainability and management. The Auditor-General’s report showed a slight improvement in a number of municipalities. There was a District Area Forum where SALGA was monitoring people that were trained. Provinces would also play a role in monitoring and evaluation. 

In terms of ward committees, she noted there were a number of challenges, specifically regarding communication and communities. People in ward committees were trained but because they worked on a voluntary basis some of them would migrate and the ward committees would become non-functional. SALGA was working on a programme where ward councilors had to ensure that there were enough funds in terms of the grant system and that there was a support programme for ward committees.

Mr Smith said he was actually asking if they followed up on their training.

Ms Molokoane-Machika stated that the training was done in partnership with the Department. They would check how effective the training was. The majority of the people worked on a voluntary basis.

Mr Masondo stated that one of the problems with training was that many institutions came about and indicated their willingness to make a contribution. However, training seemed to be a very “soft” type of delivery because of lack of proper standards and quality. This was one of the areas where significant improvement could be made.

Mr George stated that there was a need to meet the backlogs as quickly as possible. The statement to eradicate the backlogs was made in the context of the Local Government Turnaround Strategy. Backlog rates sometimes grew at a faster pace than an institution’s delivery pace. Backlog measures needed to be put in place such as financial and governance interventions as well as institutional and capacity support.

Mr George stated that the 28% increase in employee related costs concerned the institutionalisation of the capacity within SALGA in the year under review and the recruitment of personnel at a higher level. 
 
Mr Masondo stated that eradicating unemployment was always a priority for SALGA. It affected and concerned everyone and programmes needed to be implemented to deal with the matter.

Mr Joel addressed the matter on Eskom. He stated that the immediate thought was that if the tariffs increased the windfall for municipalities would increase. However, the presentation also stated that this would also be a challenge. The increase for municipalities might not be feasible because the customers might not be able to pay you and this would result in a challenge from a revenue point of view.

Mr Smith asked what SALGA was doing to capacitate itself so that it did not have to rely so much on consultants. He also directed the Committee to page 219 of the Annual Report. He noted that training fees had decreased from R2 675 237 in 2008 to R910 993 in 2009. He asked them to comment on this.

Mr George stated that SALGA undertook a highly intensive training programme as an intervention to expose staff. They had individual learning plans to give improve specific areas of support which would improve capacity. In terms of consultancy fees there were three cost drivers to blame for the increase in consultancy costs. However, these cost drivers were on a declining curve. The Auditor-General’s fees remained very high, and in the past four years there was a lot of work for the Auditor-General to do. He thought SALGA would be able to engage with the Auditor-General now that SALGA had cleared a lot issues. He thought there was scope for SALGA to receive much more consideration around the fee structure.
 
Mr Doman stated that the Committee really felt that SALGA had to “give value for money”. There were challenges at local government level; however, SALGA was expecting R100 million from municipalities as levies and they were also going to get money from the Department. It was therefore important that SALGA gave value for money. It was good to employ personnel, but it was worrying that SALGA seemed to be becoming “top heavy”. SALGA had to make use of the capacity within local government. These people could render their services to SALGA to benefit the whole country. These were difficult financial times and SALGA had to take this in to account. There were different ways of doing certain things so that there was still value for money. Members from all parties were very dissatisfied and warned that SALGA had to be very assertive in the way that it dealt with the pension fund. He had written a letter to SALGA asking them to include members from opposition parties as trustees. The moment there were multi-party trustees, there was so much more credibility. SALGA had not responded to his letter. He thought the viability of municipalities was at stake and SALGA had to play an important role in preventing this from happening.

Mr Masondo stated that SALGA agreed that it should always strive for value for money. If the country worked together, so much more could be achieved. He addressed the issue of the pension fund. He stated that SALGA was not a pension fund and had no intention of becoming one; however, the institution was forced to play a role because some of its members were affected by the pension fund problems. The role to date has been to change the rules of the pension fund and to allow for participation of its members. Members had to have a voice. A meeting would be organised by SALGA that would be attended by all the role players in the pension fund and they would decide what was to happen with the fund.

Ms Molokoane-Machika added that the country needed a “champion” who would facilitate and coordinate the use of funds so that there was value for money. SALGA needed to employ full-time people so it could become the voice for municipalities and the people.

The Chairperson stated that there was a lack of development and research capacity within SALGA and this undermined the entities ability to perform. SALGA had to become a reference for all other local government institutions.   

The meeting was adjourned.



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