Mandate and work done by South African Cities Network; with Deputy Minister

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Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs

24 November 2020
Chairperson: Ms F Muthambi (ANC)
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Meeting Summary

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OAtHARBad4

The Portfolio Committee on Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs met in a virtual sitting for a briefing by the South African Cities Network (SACN) on its work and annual business plan.

The SACN presented on its strategic highlights for the 2020/21 financial year, strategic objectives, operating model, research programmes, programmatic outputs, financial plan and risk. The SACN said the funding was a concern for the entity and it would be embarking on various fundraising activities. It would be releasing its, flagship project, the State of Cities Report in this financial year as well.

Members questioned the value of the SACN and asked for examples of the impactful work it did and it being housed within the South African Local Government Association (SALGA). Members wanted to know how much research was conducted internally at SACN versus by service providers, why the City of Cape Town had withdrawn as a SACN member, overpopulation in the City of Johannesburg, the impact of its interventions in municipalities, its expenditure on salaries and what lessons could be drawn from the reference group work on the Expanded Public Works Programme for the Communities Work Programme.

The Committee was concerned about the position of rural areas considering urbanisation and the move from rural to urban and requested that there be engagement with Traditional Leaders in this regard by the Department. The SACN said it did not support a dichotomy between urban and rural areas and advocated for the development of both. It was agreed that at the next meeting with the SACN, its member municipalities had to be invited as well to deepen engagement.

Deputy Minister Tau highlighted the importance of metropolitan municipalities and said that the SACN was a centre for coordination for the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs and other departments, and cities. He said that discussions on the future position of SACN had to continue and that Member municipalities had to be encouraged to optimise on the services they received from the SACN.

 

 

Meeting report

Chairperson’s opening remarks

The Chairperson welcomed all those who were present. She said that in future it would be best if all the Mayors of metropolitan municipalities (Metros) were invited to attend the meeting instead of only the one Mayor that had been invited. There were apologies from the Minister and Deputy Minister Bapela. Deputy Minister Tau was in the plenary and would join the meeting as soon as it ended.

The Chairperson said that it had been a year since the Committee had last met with the South African Cities Network (SACN). During this meeting the Committee was informed about SACN’s role and responsibilities and a summary of its activities were given. The Network’s flagship publication, the State of Cities (SOC) Report, was released every five years to coincide with the local government electoral cycle. The latest SOC Report dated to 2016 and the presentation from the Network indicated that the next report could be expected in the current financial year.

The purpose of the meeting was to receive an update on the SACN’s role in promoting good governance and management in South African cities and analyse the strategic challenges facing the cities. She said that over the past twelve months the Committee had various interactions with various cities but had heard nothing from the SACN on its financial and governance challenges, particularly those challenges which stemmed from the COVID-19 pandemic.

As a non-statutory body the SACN was exempt from reporting requirements of the Public Finance Management Act but it was emphasised that the Committee would be failing on its oversight responsibility if it did not engage the SACN to account on its annual grant from the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA). This grant amounted to R7.8 million in 2019/20 and was R7.5 million in the current financial year. The Committee wished the SACN well on its fundraising drive to keep the SACN functional.

The Chairperson asked the Executive Mayor of Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality and SACN Council Chairperson, Mr Xola Pakati to provide a brief introduction on the presentation.

SACN Council Chairperson’s opening remarks

Mr Pakati greeted those present and expressed appreciation for the invitation to present its operational plans. He introduced Mr Sithole Mbanga, CEO, SACN, who would present the presentation.

SACN CEO’s opening remarks  

Mr Mbanga gave thanks on behalf of the SACN for the invitation. The Chairperson had indicated that the SACN was not a statutory body but despite this it was necessary for it to account before the Committee. He said that despite the SACN not being a statutory entity, it had been established as a partnership between Metropolitan Municipalities, the National COGTA and SALGA. At the time of establishment the Department had committed itself to supporting the SACN and had never wavered in its support. The SACN’s work and research went beyond the geographies of its member municipalities. He thanked the Chairperson for suggesting that when the SACN appeared before the Committee again other Mayors from member municipalities had to be invited. In order for the Committee to understand the operational pressures faced by municipalities a meaningful engagement was important. This invite would be shared at its Annual General Meeting. The Chairperson had also mentioned that SACN had not been party to responses on how cities had been responding to the Covid-19 but SACN was part of a Committee that the National Treasury had set up which evaluated how the various cities responded to Covid-19 every Friday. SACN was updated on this issue.

SACN presentation

Executive Summary

The SACN was in the final year of its 2016-2021 five-year strategic business plan. The strategic focus areas in the 2020/2021 financial year were similar to 2019/20 except for the focus on improved communications and public perceptions. This would focus the organisation to implement a communication strategy with a clear orientation towards fulfilling the strategic imperative, influencing public discourse and strategic relationship management with key stakeholders and partners.

In this financial year, SACN would be launching the SOC Report. The SOC was SACN’s flagship project that drove the credibility of SACN within the urban development sector. The SOC had become a critical resource for the urban agenda in South Africa. Mr Mbanga said the Report would be launched as soon as there was a sense of when the elections would be but some versions of the report would be released before then.

Mr Mbanga pointed out that the current Report was centred on governance as issues in cities were centred on this. He commented that he was pained to listen to the presentation by the City of Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality earlier as it sounded like a financial report. While finance was an important aspect to what is taking place in cities, this is not the only aspect of importance. The presentation from the City of Mangaung should have expressed how citizens have experienced being governed by its local government. He pointed out that administration in Mangaung was falling apart. He said the state of the SACN was not only about finances, but also considered the economy, the inclusive agenda, the sustainable agenda, good governance and the long-term city development strategy.

He suggested that when SACN came to present this report to the Committee, it would be an opportunity for Mayors of member municipalities to be invited which would lead to a substantive discussion.

Strategic Highlights

The SACN has considered the cities’ response to Post-COVID-19. The SOC Report was ready to be published and the State of City finances 2020 Report will be published in the first quarter of next year. The Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) Annual Report will provide an idea of what is happening in the cities.

The State of Urban Safety Report 2020/21 would be released. The Spatial Determinants of Wellbeing Report Version number three which considered the current spatial configuration of cities and whether it had been designed with efficacy would be released. He said the spaces need to be reconfigured to reflect the “corridors of freedom” to make cities more inclusive and efficient. The Spatial Determinants of Wellbeing Report would be produced across the nine cities. The City of Cape Town (CoCT) withdrew its membership from SACN in 2016, but SACN still worked with the CoCT to produce reports. SACN also supported the implementation of the Integrated Urban Development Framework (IUDF).

From a governance point of view, Mayor Pakati was the Chair of Council with an independent board. The business plan being developed would stretch over the period from 2021-2026 and would consider the risks of the organisation. Once a strategy was put together, the Board would own this strategy and will continue to engage with Board committees and cities about it.

Mr Mbanga admitted that under his term as CEO marketing and communication had not been optimal but a strategy was being put in place to address this.

Strategic Objectives

The strategic objectives of the SACN were outlined. One of the strategic objectives was to optimise the company’s financial management and sustainability. Mr Mbanga added that SACN had never had a budget of over R50 million and has tried to optimise its partnerships and works with reference groups. For example, Buffalo City would be a host to a reference group that would deal with financial management. Despite this the SACN still required resources. Mangaung, CoCT and Msunduzi municipalities have not been up to speed in paying their dues to SACN as well as CoCT’s total withdrawal meant that the SACN was always R14 million short on funds. Manguang had not paid its dues in two years. The SACN had never had a negative audit report. Each year four interns were taken on at the SACN.

SACN Operating Model

Mr Mbanga outlined the SACN operating model. Interviews had been conducted with global partners to inform strategy on knowledge, dissemination and application. Knowledge application implies that the results of research must be disseminated and applied in the public and private sectors but this application had been difficult. For example, if Mangaung was in trouble and did not communicate this, it meant that knowledge application was not being done. Mangaung municipality had refused attempts for assistance from SACN and the Cities Support Programme (CSP) for the last two years. A positive response had never been received to this from Mangaung. The SACN had been working directly with the City of Johannesburg and Msunduzi on knowledge application and this had been effective. He hoped that these matters could be debated in future.

SACN research programmes

The various research themes at SACN were outlined and discussed. The themes were City Development Strategies, Well Governed Cities, Inclusive Cities and Sustainable Cities.

Strengths, Challenges, Opportunities and Threats (SCOT) Matrix

The SCOT Matrix had shown that the SACN’s biggest challenge was financially sustainable especially considering that member municipalities that did not pay their dues. There was also an increasing demand for the SACN’s work. SACN was willing to share this report with the Committee. The other strengths, challenges, opportunities and threats were outlined.

Programmatic Outputs (strategic objective 4)

A paper series, practice notes and toolkits on key topical issues affecting cities as a result of COVID-19 would be developed. The key priority initiatives would focus on Urban Health Security, Sustainable Municipal Finance, Local Economic Development and Healing Fields.

SACN Finance

(See slide 21 for details on the Income and Expenditure forecast)

Mr Mbanga said that the SACN budget was R45 580 722 which was insufficient. Revenue had declined over the years and fundraising had become increasingly difficult.  Over the past three years, the additional funding had decreased significantly as the global financial climate changed.  The risk of a decline in revenue would increase as funding agreements will be coming to an end in the 2020– 2021 business cycle.  The increase in expenditure is due to the increase in the number of employees. As a research organisation, salaries are the biggest cost driver for SACN.

The existing government and long term private partnerships of the Network were outlined.

Fundraising activities

The SACN was currently constantly looking for ways to ensure that its programme of work was executed despite diminished financial resources. The Secretariat was able to achieve this by entering into arrangements one of these arrangements included the co-financing of 3rd party programmes as part of the new model for research agenda. It had partnered with the National Research Fund (NRF) and three Research Chairs had been established. The SACN and the NRF contributed R5 million each to expand the footprint of research work.

To shore up its finances the SACN intends, among other alternatives, to venture into fundraising. The fundraising strategy intended to underpin research that identifies the specific donors that SACN finds resonance with. The identified donors could include foundations, trusts and companies.

Marketing and Communication

Mr Mbanga said that the Committee might have noticed but SACN had been doing a lot of op-eds and this was the beginning of a three stage marketing strategy in response to the SACN’s work not being marketed and the preparations for the launch of the State of the Cities Report.

Governance

Mr Mbanga said that the SACN had a Council, Board and a Secretariat. The Board was only put in place in 2017 and prior to this it had a Council. This was changed as the Municipal Finance Management Act did not allow for this. The SACN made sure it did not contravene any laws of the country when it came to running the organisation.

Risk

The biggest risk that the SACN had was finance. Mr Mbanga outlined the risk register and matrix for the entity. The voluntary membership model of the entity created a risk as municipalities could withdraw their memberships. This risk was likely to rise on the register especially considering Covid-19 and its financial impact on municipalities. On the expansion of SACN, he said that the Council had taken a decision to allow intermediate cities to gain membership. 

The Chairperson asked the Members to engage on the presentation.

Discussion

Mr C Brink (DA) noted that the SACN was not a statutory organisation, but it was funded by public money which meant that there was a clear obligation to account. Much attention was placed on funding and fundraising initiatives in the presentation. This was all very interesting, but the main concern of the Committee and South African’s in general was what value the SACN added in order to justify its existence and funding either from government grants and cities- which was from rate payer’s money. The question that had not been convincingly answered by the SACN was whether this function should not be housed within the South African Local Government Association (SALGA). What makes the SACN unique? What initiatives could the SACN point out which have made significant positive changes to its members such as outcomes which have received positive feedback?

What ground-breaking outcome could it point out? What percentage of the SACN’s annual budget was spent on salaries? How much research was conducted by external service providers and internal staff? What were the two largest operational expense items? Had any research been conducted by the SACN on skills and expertise available in the job market to cities in the professions of engineering, charted accounting and town planning? Are there any proposals related to this that can be shared with the Committee?

Mr K Ceza (EFF) asked why the City of Cape Town had left the SACN and what work had been done to turn industrial development zones and plans into new cities with the necessary amenities and services.

He said that the City of Johannesburg (CoJ) overpopulated and asked what research mechanisms were in place to decentralise the city and give people a choice to explore new economic opportunities.

SACN’s response

Mr Mbanga answered that the effectiveness of the SACN was highly dependent on the recipients or utilisers of its work or services to determine how its work was received.

On, where the SACN had been effective and contributed to policy, he said that South Africa had contributed through SACN’s work to the New Urban Agenda, which was a United Nations Policy instrument which aims to drive the world towards a concrete response on the Urban Agenda. This was at a global level.

At a national level, the Chapter in the National Development Plan which spoke to human settlements was instrumentally driven by focus groups of city practitioners in the SACN. The IUDF was driven solely by the SACN. This is why the SACN still serves as the Secretariat of the IUDF. The SACN was working on creating a link between the District Development Model (DDM) and the implementation of the IUDF.

At a local level, SACN engaged with cities annually to determine their research needs. On the basis of this a research programme was collated.

The SACN’s value at a city level was that it allowed cities to work together and achieve economies of scale of working together. In many instances, cities as big institutions tended to work individually yet on similar issues.

SACN had been the voice of cities within the local government framework. It had managed to get practitioners to work together at a sectoral and non-sector level to develop position papers that were presented in Parliament. For example, papers on public transport and cities becoming energy producers. This showed its contribution.

Mr Mbanga said that he would refrain from commenting on the view that the work of the SACN had to be conducted under the auspices of SALGA only because cities are already paying membership dues to SALGA. The problem was that SALGA was very big and therefore it was important to dissect the agenda and work so that bespoke services were provided to different institutions. The principle of differentiated support became applicable in this instance.

The Council of SACN was in the position to decide whether this work had to be done under the auspices of SALGA. He said that if was asked for an input on the matter he would advise Council to ensure that the Urban Agenda not be swallowed as most of the SALGA members were not institutions that drove the urban agenda or Metros. There were pros and cons but he agreed that there was efficacy in this view, but this would have to be tested.

On salaries at the SACN, he said that staff costs amounted to R21 million and the capital expenditure was R11 million. Three municipalities had not paid membership dues and this created a huge problem. The SACN may have to lay off some staff by June 2021 as the situation was becoming untenable. He said he was not raising the issue of money to use the meeting for fundraising, but was simply reflecting on the reality of the situation. It considered research as important and was raising funding for it.

On internal research versus externally provided research, he said that initially there was a 50/50 balance as the SACN had internal researchers doing primary research, but sometimes partnerships with universities such as the University of the Free State was important. Sometimes PhD students took on the research work and it was chaired by Professors. This is just one of the mechanisms used by the SACN to continue its work. The SACN did not intend to do much research in this financial year, but would revert back to cities to determine their research needs. This would ensure that the 2021-2026 Business Plan was well informed from a research perspective. The majority of staff at the SACN were involved in the research.

On research done about expertise and skills required in cities, he said that the SACN had looked at skills shortages and expertise that will be needed by Nelson Mandela Bay, but this has not been done across the nine cities. The work SACN did was demand driven and it did research requested by cities. Its budget was the smallest amongst the various research institutions and it worked primarily with practitioners in reference groups. The establishment of reference groups made how the SACN worked affordable in comparison to other organisations hence it did not always do primary  research.

On why the CoCT left the SACN, he said that the CoCT left the SACN after it consulted various Departments -which did not directly work with the SACN- which said that the SACN did not add any value. He said this was strange as it still worked with practitioners in the COCT who were part of the reference groups. This battle had been lost after many delegations went to the CoCT but the Urban Agenda could not be discussed with Cape Town excluded. Despite the CoCT seizing formal membership to the Network, there was still engagement with practitioners.

On industrial development zones, he said that work had not been done on industrial development zones, but work had been done relating to economic development which would link to this. It had not how however done research on specific industrial development zones. It had however done work on development agencies. To return to the question about the effectives of the entity he said that area based management lead to the creation of City Improvement Districts and this concept came from the SACN’s work.

He said he did not understand the question on decentralisation in Johannesburg and asked that the question be asked again.

Further discussion

Mr Ceza said that studies have been done all over the world which illustrated that new cities could be built using certain models. This could be applied in the case of South Africa and a plan could be created to address overpopulation and internal migration for economic opportunities in the country. Areas in South Africa were overpopulated and industrial development zones could be turned into new cities. Johannesburg was overwhelmed with people. What research work had been done on this?

Mr Brink said that he asked what percentage was spent on salaries and how much research output was done internally and externally. He wanted to know the percentages that accounted for this. The figures provided shows that expenditure by the SACN in the 2019/20 financial year had an expenditure of R38.8 million and staff costs were R17.6 million. It had been mentioned that a lot of expenditure was on personnel as they conducted research but then in the next financial year the total expenditure was about R40 million and salaries had increased to R21.8 million in 2020/21. He said that salaries had increased, but money allocated to projects did not increase which was why it was important to know what amount of research was done internally. If more was being paid for salaries than external projects it was important to know much research work was being done in house and by external providers. If most of the work was not being done internally then this could mean resources were spent inefficiently as people were being employed whilst there was a reliance on service providers.

The Chairperson asked what lessons could be drawn from the reference group work on the EPWP in order to inform the redesign and repurposing of the Communities Work Programme (CWP). To further what Mr Brink had said, she said most of the entity’s work was done by technical experts. To what extent was the absence of in-house technical expertise a drawback on the SACN’s work? Would a conference be launched to introduce the State of Cities Report? What had been the mile stone that it had achieved thus far and what theme would be informing the report?

The Committee recently had a meeting with the Provincial and National houses of Traditional Leadership and its representative informed the Committee that rural areas remained an enduring part of the South Africa’s future landscape notwithstanding the rural to urban migration. When considering the projections made by the United Nations, it pointed to an urban future which would increase by 80% in 2050. This suggests that there may be complete urbanisation at some point. She said the Committee wanted to know what the SACN’s research insight was on the rural urban debate. As the custodian of the IUDF, that acknowledged urban rural linkages, what contribution could the SACN offer to make rural areas an attractive place to live in and reduce the pressure of rural to urban migration on the resources of the member cities?

Ms M Tlou (ANC) said that poor performance and consequence management was an issue in most the country’s municipalities. What was the SACN doing to develop effective mechanisms to stop these same mistakes from happening as this negatively impacted municipalities? Did the SACN’s interventions concerning poor service delivery in municipalities, yield any positive results?

SACN’s response

Mr Mbanga asked if he could respond to the question by Mr Brink in writing to ensure that he provided the correct response.

On internal research, he said that research was being done internally, but research was not a huge focus in the current financial year as the SACN was putting together a new five-year plan that had to be informed by the research demands of the cities. Therefore it was closing off the current plan and new research was not being done.

On overpopulation in Johannesburg and what SACN had done to create new cities, he said that Johannesburg was perhaps not only overpopulated, but also had poor settlements which stemmed from a segregated way of planning. This caused inefficiencies in the way a densified city should be planned. The SACN has learned from outside South Africa that cities were encouraged to densify and use as little space as possible for human settlements. By densifying, efficiency was created as more than one family could be accommodated. For example, the same pipe and sewer structure would supply water to more than one family. Planning Departments differ in their response to densification.

The creation of new cities was a big debate. At the turn of democracy, a new city had emerged in the Johannesburg metropolitan municipality called Sandton and there was a flight of capital. This left the inner city empty and some people who owned buildings in the inner city were unable to maintain it and this was how some buildings were hijacked. This was the adverse effect of creating new cities without balancing it out with the older cities. Researchers have debated the pros and cons of this, but this does not mean new cities should not be created as new cities can exploit technology and innovation which would make them more efficient.

On lessons from the EPWP for the CWP, he said that many lessons could be learned and this could perhaps be another long discussion. The work done relating to EPWP has shown that cities can use the CWP to create job opportunities and employment if utilised correctly. He said he had not heard the Chairperson’s question in its entirety and asked if it could be returned to if he had not answered it adequately. There were lessons learned from the work done concerning the EPWP that could be applied in the CWP.

On the launch of the SOC Report, he said that a conference would not be held in the manner in which conferences had been organised before. In the previous month, in conjunction with its partners it had organised an urban festival which was virtual due to the COVID-19 pandemic. No less than 4000 people attended this virtual conference. A number of ideas on the urban question were harvested and a report on this could be shared with the Committee. He doubted that the launch would be physical and was likely to be a virtual launch.

On the SACN’s input on the debate about rural-urban, he said that as the IUDF indicated, the SACN did not think that there should be a dichotomy or a division in our minds and how we articulate policy on urban and rural spaces. The division ought to be artificial. The SACN believed that if there was to be strong rural areas, strong cities should be built. Conversely, if there are to be strong urban cities, strong rural areas must be built. A strong rural agenda had to be developed. The SACN did not focus strongly on rural development as part of its directive, but it did make some contributions to this. Submissions and contributions were made on why it was necessary not to dichotomise the urban and rural and instead to have a conversation about urban and rural.

On mechanisms for consequence management, he said that SACN had not considered consequence management at all. There has not been a research programme looking at human capital management and HR. He asked for clarity on Ms Tlou’s final question.

Follow up questions

The Chairperson asked if the Members had follow up questions. The Chairperson, to clarify her question, said that the entity had reported reference work on the EPWP and the Department experienced challenges with the Community Works Programme. This area caused the Department to receive a qualified audit outcome and it was a major contributor to the Department receiving adverse opinions. She wanted to know which lessons could be drawn from the extensive reference group work on the EPWP’s redesign.

Ms Tlou said that she had said that another issue was poor service delivery which was not progressing in municipalities and that the SACN had mentioned it had intervened in this area. Since then had its intervention yielded any good results?

The Chairperson added that SACN could cite the case of Msunduzi in response to the question as the Committee had interacted with Msunduzi a month ago.

SACN’s response

Mr Mbanga, on achieving good results in Msunduzi, said that the SACN’s interventions were not operational as it could not make suggestions to operational staff on what to do. The SACN’s interventions were always about strategic issues and this was how far the entity could go.

On whether SACN’s interventions yielded results, he said that its interventions had yielded results such as in Buffalo City which had an experienced governance issues. The SACN brought stability to the organisation. He emphasised that the SACN could not claim easy victories and attribute Buffalo City’s stability solely to the SACN but it was still stable currently. He added that as he had said earlier the success of the SACN was highly dependent on how receptive the organisation it sort to assist was.

On Msunduzi, he said that for the last two years SACN had worked with colleagues there until there was a need to bring in a City Manager. Currently, a new City Manager had been placed and it had gained stability despite service delivery challenges due to its experiencing financial strain. The SACN had supported Msunduzi in these developments and by 2022/2023 the municipality should be in a better state.

Continuing on SACN interventions, he said that it was important that it was understood that the SACN did not believe these interventions on their own would be successful. It believed that it was quite important that interventions involved a collective approach from all stakeholders that were providers of support to municipalities.

From SACN’s perspective data analysis had to be at the forefront of interventions that were made. He added that SACN had an open data almanac and said that he wanted to make reference to it when Mr Brink asked what value the entity added. SACN had created an open data almanac, called the South African Cities Data Almanac which collated data from various municipalities for everybody to access without having to pay money for it. It did not believe that data should be purchased when it was produced by the public sector. This was another value-add of the SACN.

The next set of interventions working through the DDM would require quality data that allowed for intelligent decision making with real data to understand linkages between various sets of infrastructure to create new economies and exploit the green agenda.

The Chairperson thanked Mr Mbanga for his response. She asked the SACN Chairman to make his final remarks.

Mr Pakati expressed his appreciation for the discussion.

Deputy Minister’s remarks

Mr Parks Tau, Deputy Minister, COGTA, greeted those present. He said that the general observation was that Metropolitan Municipalities invested significantly in data collection, research and benchmarking and that the work of the SACN was relevant from this point of view. There were discussions on whether SACN had to evolve, become part of SALGA, restructured or have its mandate expanded. He believed that these debates should continue and as solutions were found there had to be implementation. Metropolitan Municipalities played an important role for the entire country in urbanisation, levels of employment, benefits of city development and whole range of contributions made including being the centres of economic activity.

 Member municipalities had to be encouraged to optimise on the services they received from the SACN as had been indicated municipalities duplicated costs for data collection and collation when an institution like SACN could be used and enhanced to do this. The CEO and Council Chairmen had emphasised the point that the SACN was also considered as an important coordination mechanism not only for the cities themselves but also coordination and liaison with not just COGTA but other departments as well particularly on policy processes. From this point of view it became the secretariat of the IUDF and played this role in the revision of the IUDF implementation framework. From this point of view the entity had become a centre around which COGTA and other departments could coordinate. He said it had been a valuable discussion and the points made by Members had to be taken into account by the SACN and all stakeholders.  

Chairperson’s closing remarks

The Chairperson welcomed the presentation and appreciated the attendance of the Chairperson of the Council and CEO She said that all eight Metros had to be engaged in relation to SACN’s work next when Parliament began. The Committee had dealt with Manguang Municipality earlier in the day and had given it up to Thursday to submit written responses and then there would a follow-up meeting. She asked the Deputy Ministers, particularly Deputy Minister Bapela to explore the matter of the rural-urban relation that affected cities. There had to be engagement with the National House and Provincial Houses of Traditional Leadership. The Committee had learned from its engagement from the National House of Traditional Leadership that they had become development agents and it would go a long way if there was engagement with these leaders. The SACN was given time until Friday at 12 pm to send through written responses to questions not addressed during the discussion.  

The meeting was adjourned.

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