Alrode Petition; Alphen Park Residents Petition; City of Ekurhuleni Residents Petition

Meeting report

The Chairperson welcomed everyone to the meeting. He apologised to the petitioners for the delayed engagement on the issues that they had raised. First, there was some change in the Committee. A new chairperson had replaced Ms F Muthambi (ANC), but beyond the question of change, there might have been other challenges in terms of the programme of Parliament. As public representatives, the Committee would prioritise issues that get raised by communities. That was the Committee’s primary responsibility – to represent the public and conduct oversight, and make sure that the public participates in all issues of governance. So it was something that the Committee would correct. Despite the time lapse, they had come to this point where they were now trying to deal with their backlogs. In terms of the agenda, there was only one item they would be dealing with in the meeting, which was the petitions from Ekurhuleni. He said it was fortunate the petitioners were in the meeting as they would remind everybody of the context and what the issues were.

Petition 1

Ms T Bodlani (DA) noted the Chairperson’s opening remarks that this petition had taken a really long time before it came to the Committee. She had submitted the petition on behalf of her constituency in Alberton in the City of Ekurhuleni. The petition came about because the business owners of Alrode were called to a public meeting to discuss the potential power outages, and as a result, coming from that meeting, a petition was signed. Their biggest grievance was that they do not have a constant power supply and this was impacting their businesses. Their issue was that instead of allowing their employees, for example, to stay home, because there would be no power, employees would have to come in and the employers would have to incur that cost. So that was very difficult for them. She gave an example of one business owner who owned a motor painting company, who would say that if the power went off, the product would be ruined, and she would have to restart the whole thing, and it was very expensive. So they were lamenting the expense that they incurred because of the regular power outages. As the Chairperson would know, this petition was submitted before the elections and it was now under the leadership of Cllr Samantha Nair.

When she was called to the Committee to present this petition, she had spoken to Councillor Nair who had made her aware that the situation had changed. There had been a lot of work from the new administration. Projects were rolling, and the outrages were not as frequent as they used to be. It was thus Councillor Nair’s belief that things were really changing and the businesses were no longer as badly affected as when the petition was submitted. Her submission to the Committee was to ask how do we sustain what is happening at this point, notwithstanding the challenges that we have with load shedding. She had seen the presentation that would be made to the Committee, which also spoke to load shedding as the biggest contributor to the power outages. It also spoke to the lack of servicing, or poor servicing, of infrastructure as a contributor to the power outages. It was her belief that that was historic and not something that was going to be fixed overnight. So what she would love to get on behalf of residents of Alberton and on behalf of the business owners of Alrode was some commitment to say how what is happening now, with regular constant supply, will be sustained.

Petition 2

Ms H Ismail (DA) said that, albeit a bit late, these petitions were now being addressed, and she welcomed the fact. However, she needed to highlight that the second petition (her ‘first petition’) was submitted on behalf of the residents of Ekurhuleni, and most especially residents of Benoni and surrounding areas, due to the constant non-service delivery of refuse removal. Although it was known that this had been happening for the past few years, the residents still had the same problem. Residents were complaining that they were paying for the services, yet they were not getting any response. She had looked at the presentation that was sent via the Committee Secretary. However, she felt that that presentation, especially with regard to refuse removal, did not actually tell the truth about what was happening on the ground. Since the refuse removal trucks were not on the ground when necessary, it seemed to be that most of the time the Department had to rely on weekend routes to these non-service areas.

She said that she would like some more responses from the City of Ekurhuleni to say how they are actually going to be responding to the residents of especially Boksburg and Benoni. These were some of the areas that she could highlight right then, that were not getting any service delivery for three, four, or five weeks, and then only would the Department come up with something to say that they were now going to have some contingency plans to come out to these areas to pick up the dustbins. This was also resulting in a lot of illegal dumping and unnecessary hype by residents, and actually led to refuse being dumped in front of civic centres, etc. From her side, she thought that she would like some response from the City of Ekurhuleni to perhaps say what their challenges were. Perhaps that could be stated here so that the problem could be properly understood, and the City of Ekurhuleni could then request the National Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA) to assist with the shortages that the City of Ekurhuleni was experiencing.

Petition 3

Ms Ismail then addressed the third petition, (which would be her second petition) on the pollution of the wetlands. This petition was regarding sewage overflow into the wetlands and into the lakes and dams. It was obviously causing an unhealthy environment for residents and also affecting the bird life. There were dams that were actually being used by scouts, etc., and now it was being found that due to the unhealthy environment or unhealthy pollution into these lakes and dams, there was a problem. She had seen the presentation, scrutinised it, and tried to check whether there was anything really substantial that had changed. But the night before she received a response from some of the residents to say that the sewage overflows were actually not changed. There may have been a slight change in the last few months, where residents were getting more effective service delivery on the ground, but it was not actually dealing with the problem or assisting in dealing with the problem. She thought that in the presentation it was stated clearly that the infrastructure was old, and obviously more funds were needed by the City of Ekurhuleni to properly address this. Perhaps after the City of Ekurhuleni had had their say, maybe there could be some sort of interaction again, and they could then highlight more things once they get more information from the City of Ekurhuleni going forward.

The Chairperson said that before he allowed the City of Ekurhuleni to present, he thought the term petition indicated that issues were raised with the relevant authority, and there could have been no satisfactory response. So in other words, he would imagine that this petition coming to the National Assembly must have first been addressed to the municipality. He indicated that he was talking for the future and that he would like to say that all Members were public representatives and must be accessible to the public and respond as they would expect. So in other words, they had to minimise petitions coming to the Committee because there were three spheres of government, and they expected all of them to engage. The Committee would hear this petition and the responses to this petition, but he was trying to say to Ms Tania Campbell, the Executive Mayor: Ekurhuleni Municipality, that there was a way, and that you didn't have to address petitions at that level before they come to the Committee.

Mayor’s Input
Ms Campbell thanked the Chairperson for his comment. There certainly was a way forward and there certainly was also an avenue for petitions to be addressed within the City of Ekurhuleni. As Executive Mayor of Ekurhuleni, she would also like to thank him for the opportunity to present their feedback for these three petitions, which were quite old. Quite a lot of work had been done. The petitions for consideration by the Committee would be presented by the leadership of the City of Ekurhuleni, who would speak to the individual petitions. The first petition regarding the Alrode industrial area would be presented by Mr Senzi Sibeko, Member of the Mayoral Committees (MMC): Water, Sanitation and Energy, Ekurhuleni Municipality, and Mr Tshilidzi Thenga, HOD: Water, Sanitation and Energy, Ekurhuleni Municipality. They had had quite a lot of public meetings within the area and had come to quite a good solution with the business owners and public and private participation within the Alrode area. So quite a good turnaround and workable solutions were being seen. The second petition regarding the inadequate refuse removal would be presented by Mr Andre Du Plessis, MMC: Environment and Waste Management, Ekurhuleni Municipality, and Ms Faith Wotshela, HOD: Environmental Resources and Waste Management, Ekurhuleni Municipality. The third petition regarding the sewer infrastructure would be presented by Mr Sibeko and Mr Thokozani Maseko, HOD: Water and Sanitation, Ekurhuleni Municipality, who would address the issue of sanitation.
 
City of Ekurhuleni Presentations

Alrode Petition
Mr Sibeko introduced the presentation in response to the petition regarding the failure of the City to provide constant and reliable electricity. Mr Thenga presented the: Root causes of power failure in the Alrode area; Identified problems/challenges; Interventions; Milestones; Proposed plan; Proposed Reliability Initiative; and STATs Meters from HV to MV networks.

As much as there had been some improvement since submitting the petition, the question was now one of sustainability because businesses, industries, and residents still had issues with power outages. The issue is thus not totally resolved, however, the City has found some solution so that at least there is a bit of relief. Since the petition was lodged, the City has done a lot of work to address major challenges found in Alberton. Challenges related to: Aging infrastructure, leading to equipment failures/major outages; Lack of funding to address refurbishment backlog; Load shedding, which contributes to the entire system reliability; Shortage of resources. 86.76% of outages were due to Eskom load shedding, whilst other root causes were related to cable fault, operational cause, and equipment failure.

Interventions included: completion of a new substation to assist in alleviating the constraint in the network, which will be finalised by the financial year end; refurbishment of two main substations, with targets for the financial year end; and maintenance and upgrading of other substations. Results were already being seen where progress has been made. Regarding milestones, for sustainability to happen it was important to secure the City’s infrastructure. The issue of third-party interference in the network through vandalism and theft made the situation worse. The idea was to secure substations by monitoring them through cameras and installing early warning devices. However, it was impossible to monitor everything in the network as it would be very costly, so the City looked at monitoring those hotspots and strategic areas that are openly affected.

The proposed reliability initiative says that the City needs to pump in more funding as and when it is available. With that funding, they need to intensify maintenance, localisation, and manage the entire process. Infrastructure must be secured. The City needed to have an alternative supply, especially for the businesses, for when certain things happen on a certain circuit – which was being looking at. Network visibility was important for the City, as they needed to be able to see what was happening where at any given point in time from a central point, which was the plan.

(See Presentation)

City of Ekurhuleni Residents Petition
Mr Du Plessis introduced the presentation in response to the petition regarding the inadequate waste collection in Benoni and Boksburg. Ms Wotshela presented the: Background; Response; and Conclusion.

Historical problems were being experienced in the sense that the City had an aging fleet of waste removal vehicles and problems with the processing of financials in historical invoices. The City endeavoured to render refuse removal services weekly as scheduled. The services were mostly interrupted by mechanical breakdowns on waste removal vehicles and one of the main reasons for this problem was that the City had extremely old compactors. If services are interrupted, ward councillors are advised of alternative dates of collection, and arrangements are made to clear backlogs over weekends to ensure the provision of weekly services. Any additional waste is also collected. The City has nine mini disposal sites available between Benoni and Boksburg where residents can take their waste at no charge.

To stabilise waste collection, the City uses compactors that are made available through an “As and When” contract. Some areas are serviced through outsourced contractors. However, the City’s budget is insufficient in comparison to the demand for the service as the extent of breakdowns is too large and the City was replacing the fleet that it had at too slow a pace. There is thus a need to consider funding on a larger scale for the recapitalisation of their fleet. The City was also currently investigating the full maintenance lease module. The City would have an urgent meeting on the following Tuesday to come up with sustainable and urgent solutions. The City was exploring lease versus purchasing. Full maintenance lease contracts will allow for immediate replacement of vehicles, as it is usually expensive to purchase outright all the time. In the meantime, they were looking at fast-tracking payments to external service providers.
(See Presentation)

Alphen Park Petition

Mr Sibeko introduced the presentation regarding sanitation, more specifically failing sewer infrastructure causing spillage into the wetland which feeds Benoni lakes and dams. Mr Maseko presented the: Background; Causes of blockages; Intervention; Environmental compliance; and Conclusion.

While the City needs to attend to aging infrastructure and reduce the frustration in terms of the sewage overflow, there is also the challenge against nature, tree roots, and intrusion. However, community members need to play a huge role in assisting the City, because a lot of times when they found themselves doing maintenance and repairs, they found foreign objects, theft, manholes etc. Responsible businesses also played a role, however, there is the challenge of dealing with what they excrete into pipelines. As much as the City upgrades and refurbishes, they need assistance to ensure the protection of infrastructure.

Alphen Park, Farrarmere is a very old suburb and thus the infrastructure is old, being 55 years old. The major challenge with this infrastructure is the earthenware pipe material used when this was done, which can be infiltrated by roots. With the movement of soil and changing of temperatures, it can also crack as it expands or contracts, causing easy root intrusion. Causes of sewer blockages include: Aging infrastructure; Tree roots intrusion; Foreign Objects; Power outages (loadshedding) affecting pump stations; Manhole covers theft; and fats from nearby restaurants. The City’s intervention extends to education and awareness campaigns, to inform communities that they need to take care of infrastructure. The City has resources such as internal teams, and “as and when” maintenance contractors working 24/7 as reported to the call centre. Regular inspections are done at identified hotpots to minimise any damage to infrastructure. The City does monthly tests to monitor the water quality as per the environmental compliance reports.

(See Presentation)

Discussion
The Chairperson said that, in the meantime, the Committee should proceed because the primary responsibility in dealing with these issues lay with the metro. While the Committee waited for the Gauteng Department of COGTA to come into the meeting, the Chairperson invited the Members to discuss, as they had received the petition, explanations, and then the response.

Mr I Groenewald (FF+) was glad to hear that some of the petition points were addressed, but he wanted to ask the municipalities a question in terms of dispute resolution. In terms of the Systems Act, they had to have a mechanism in place to handle complaints to the municipality. This had to be open for the public to know. He could not get anything on their websites in terms of dispute resolution. Was there a mechanism in place within the municipalities? And do they communicate this mechanism to the communities?

Mr A Matumba (EFF) started with a question to Mr Thenga. He had heard that the City was having a shortage of resources, specialised vehicle equipment, and manpower, but it was expected that they address such. This had to be something that was budgeted for so that they had the manpower and this specialised equipment, because once businesses had a problem with electricity, they would leave, and people were going to lose jobs in the municipality. The Committee could not address issues of service delivery that should have been addressed there in the municipality. A petition should have been coming as a petition for policy change or something, but service delivery was something that could be done through Administration and Management. It was something that was wrong. “You ask yourself, why do we then have municipalities and provincial government if they are not going to ask our people?” The petition that the Committee should have been having here was supposed to be on policy or was supposed to be on bylaws, and that they would want this law to be scrapped – a law that was being implemented. However, if they were going to come here and then discuss service delivery, that was something that was wrong.

He then turned to waste management. Once he heard the word “service providers”, he knew that that was where the problem was. There was a tendency by municipalities that were now relegating their duties to contractors. When it was time to prepare financial statements – contractors. When it was time to provide security guards – contractors. When it was time to provide water tanks – contractors. “Then you ask yourself, why are we having municipalities when municipalities are not doing their jobs and they are using contractors? Did they not see that their full fleet is getting old? Why do they not replace it? They should have sold the old ones and bought the new ones. It cannot be that contractors are the ones that they rely on to do work. They must do their own work and leave these things of using contractors. By now they should have been telling the Committee that they had an order and were going to buy how many fleets. It could not be that they were relying on contractors because what was going to happen next was that their own people inside were going to sabotage municipality cars so that contractors could come and do work.” It had been seen in KwaZulu-Natal, where people were now killing each other to provide water tanks. So to avoid many things, municipalities had to replace the issue of contractors and make sure that they provided services on their own.

The other issue was old infrastructure. The Committee could not be told about the infrastructure of 1967. By now, the municipality should have had a plan that they were having a three-phase or a four-phase plan, where they were going to replace old infrastructure and put in a new one. “You could not expect something built in 1967 to be functioning properly now.” People were many, the population was growing, and it was the same with the capacity. Something that was built in 1967 could not hold the capacity of today. So, the municipality should have been telling the Committee what they had planned. Lastly, he hoped that this would be the last time. This was a serious waste of time that could have been put into doing something. The City should have been in the municipality providing service by now. Now they were appearing here, discussing service delivery with the Committee and Members who should have been dealing with other issues. Service delivery was something that the Committee should not even sit down and talk about. Management and political leadership had to make sure that there was service delivery. What the Committee should have been discussing was policy and ideology and other things.

Mr X Msimango (ANC) said that perhaps there was a lesson that the Committee needed to take out of this engagement or out of these meetings. It was that one, they needed to first define what it was that they called a petition. He agreed with Mr Matumba. Service delivery could not be a petition. For instance, he wanted to be specific, Mr Thenga was speaking about the shortage of equipment. Surely that was not the competency of the national government? His understanding was that the municipality should have set and drafted a budget plan to say, these are the things that they would need in order for them to be able to make sure that they deliver services as expected, because it was the competency of the municipality to deliver basic services to the community. Was there any plan in place to get this equipment—because for the municipality to be able to deliver services, they had to have the equipment, including manpower? They had to be able to close those vacancies that were not closed so that they were able to be sufficient enough in terms of fulfilling their manpower, but also in terms of their equipment. So that could not be tabled here. In fact, the community was correct to complain. However, the response that the Committee was getting from the municipality to say that they are short of equipment as if somebody somewhere had to come and buy equipment for the municipality. For him, it was unacceptable. By the time the meeting was ended, they should be able to get a clear answer as to when the City is buying that equipment.

He said that he did not capture the name of the colleague that was presenting, talking about old infrastructure. However, for him, this had become a challenge that was facing many municipalities that had townships or residential areas that were old. Mr Maseko was speaking about an infrastructure that was as old as 55 years. Surely this infrastructure did not wake up and become old? The City knew that the infrastructure was old, and yet there was no plan as to say, “How do you want to mitigate this process?”. Surely the City should be saying to the Committee and presenting a plan that says, “This is the plan. Maybe in phase one, this is what we'll do. Phase two…”, up until the City resolved the issue of infrastructure. The community was complaining of correct things if that was the case. Members had to come out of the meeting with a clear plan from the municipality, or if they needed time, they had to go back, and then come back and tell the Committee as to say when they are going to be able to put [a plan together]. The Committee needed timeframes to say when they were going to sort out the issue of equipment, and when they were going to sort out the issue of infrastructure. Of course, infrastructure was not something that was small – the City had to budget in different financial years, and they had to put their planning to say this year, “This is how much we will do and this is how much we will budget.” However, the community must be kept abreast as to say when these things are going to happen for them to be able to live. Then the Committee would be able to come and say, “In terms of policy, these are the things that we think maybe must be changed.” But it cannot be that the Committee was called to come and discuss equipment. The Committee had to distinguish and to say which petitions they considered should be entertained by the Committee.

Mr B Hadebe (ANC) said that he had heard his colleagues and he shared most of their sentiments. He thought there was a need for them to address issues that had been brought before them. The petition, having been assessed by Parliament, had been directed to the Committee. He stated upfront that he was from Ekurhuleni, Vosloorus, so he was going to be a bit subjective in this matter. He understood the frustration of the community out there. Having served as an official in municipalities, particularly in the Civil Engineering Department, he understood the issues that the officials were raising. However, he was not comfortable with the solution to address these challenges, particularly as it related to the roots intrusion into the pipes that were built in 1967. The City had correctly highlighted the challenges, but what was lacking in the presentation was the solution moving forward because they were going to constantly get this intrusion of the roots into these pipes.

The question was what would be a sustainable solution in addressing the challenge? He said that he would like the last presenter to give the Committee such an undertaking, and if there were any milestone projections and timeframes, that those be indicated to the Committee. Then the Committee would arrive at a conclusion where they would say that perhaps they would have to get a quarterly progress report in addressing these challenges. To only highlight the problems did not assist because when Ms Ismail had written the petition to the Committee, she called upon Members to investigate the challenges and come up with possible solutions. He concurred with his colleagues and proposed that the Committee be given a detailed plan on addressing the issue of the old infrastructure, and how they are going to address such moving forward. That was his proposal in relation to the last presentation.

He referred to the presentation that dealt with the refuse removal services with challenges pertaining to compactors that continuously needed to be maintained and having to resort to weekend refuse collection. Again, the Committee needed to get the magnitude and the extent of the challenge in terms of what exactly it would take to ensure that the services were not interrupted. One, the presentation did not give the Committee a sense of how many compactors are needed to ensure a sustainable collection of services during the week and how many competitors they currently had. Two, what the extent of outsourcing was, as the City had spoken of “as and when” contracts.

He proposed that the Committee receive a detailed response also in this regard, and that they should be given timeframes again. This was the administration newly elected in 2021 and he was sure that they had undertaken public participation in relation to their Integrated Development Plan (IDP) and budget for the next five years. Was this catered for in their IDP? And how soon would the problem be addressed? For how long would the residents continue to be confronted with a situation where waste will be collected on weekends? A project plan was needed that would detail the attempts to eradicate the challenges confronted by this municipality. The presentation captured the challenges well, but it fell short by not giving the Committee a solution for addressing this problem and making sure that it was eradicated in future.

Mr G Mpumza (ANC) said that the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996, enjoined the City of Ekurhuleni to provide services to its community in a sustainable manner. Equally, the Constitution enjoins the same City to promote a safe and healthy environment. Any breakage of services to communities, whether it is the breakage of electricity provision or the non-removal of waste, was actually a violation of those two clauses of the Constitution. To add on to what the Chairperson had raised in his opening remarks, he said it was very difficult that communities should be petitioning the National Assembly to investigate matters that were affecting them – which should have been provided and responded to by their local government, in this instance the City of Ekurhuleni.

The Municipal Systems Act made provision for mechanisms to be set in place, as well as the early warning systems, so that earlier on there would be an indication that particular infrastructure would actually reach [the end of] its useful lifespan. When a proper asset management system was put in place, it would ensure that in terms of the asset management policy that infrastructure that was old would be disposed of at a particular time. It could not be that the Committee was told that one of the reasons why these services were not rendered was simply because the infrastructure was old. The municipality should have known long ago that this particular structure at a particular time would reach its useful lifespan and refurbishment [or replacement] would have to be kicked in. Did this reflect, perhaps, the failure of proper management by the executive of the City, as well as the failure of the leadership to provide leadership at all times on these particular matters?

He agreed with other Members, that perhaps in respect of any intervention by the City – the plan that would be put in place to refurbish old infrastructure, the plan that would be put in place to replace the old infrastructure for refuse removal – that a proper plan would have to be developed. It would then have to be presented to the Committee with clear timeframes on when that would happen. This was so that Members would be in a position to respond as the Committee to the petition that was sent to them to say, “Let's investigate.” What measures had the City put in place to provide security to its infrastructure, as well as the manholes that were vandalised, as well as the stripping of the metal on such manholes? What security measures had the municipality put in place to ensure that such instances or incidents are pre-empted and prevented?

Petitioner’s Response
Ms Ismail thanked all of the officials for coming out and addressing the petitions. She highlighted a few things that she was concerned about after listening to the presentation. She wanted to put on record that these petitions were submitted before the new administration took over in the City of Ekurhuleni, and that she had seen a difference in service delivery. That was why she was highlighting only two areas, which were Benoni and Boksburg. If one looked at the petition, it stated the City of Ekurhuleni and the whole of the City of Ekurhuleni. However, she had highlighted Benoni and Boksburg because she had seen a difference in service delivery in the last few months. However, what she was concerned about now, after listening to the issues of invoices not being paid on time, and a fleet that was not functioning, and obviously looking at budgets that had been passed, and it was acknowledged that the City had been trying its utmost in getting the municipality functioning, she was just worried that, as executive of the City, whether there were any accountability or management strategic plans in place. The City may have a new administration when it came to MMCs and mayors, but she thought that most of the time the officials knew what was going on in the Department.

Were there any specific things that the City was doing to ensure that the person who was responsible for paying up these invoices and ensuring that the fleet were actually functioning or that the maintenance was being done, etc., is actually held accountable by the executive of the City? This was telling the Committee that something had severely gone wrong. While the City may have passed the new budget to fix up the previous year's maladministration, the City was definitely going to be running out of budget to effectively provide service delivery to the residents. They would be back to square one. She also noted from what the City told the Committee in their presentation, that the outsourced areas had been 100% on schedule all this time. She also noted the Mayor stating that the City was going to be having a meeting to discuss all this with the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and the city manager, etc., and this was appreciated.

However, she still felt that, listening to the challenges of the City, she would like to ask the National Department for assistance on behalf of the City's residents. This was to say that they acknowledged the infrastructure issues, they acknowledged the fleet issues, they acknowledged the invoices not being paid on time, they acknowledged that during weekends the Department was trying to catch up. However, it was also known that there was frustration on the ground, and that the City does have a call centre, etc., where people could actually report. She could acknowledge that as she was a resident in the City of Ekurhuleni, and she had served as a PR Counsellor and Ward Counsellor in the City of Ekurhuleni, she knew that there was a call centre and she knew that it was functioning much better now. However, her point was that there was no conclusive evidence that these particular towns in these wards were actually going to be receiving effective service delivery.

If one was looking at weekends, and while she had heard the HOD stating weekends, and this was appreciated, the reality was that it was just costing the City even more money. This was because it was known that when it came to weekends, there was going to be a problem with paying overtime. She said that she would like some constructive report back, to be able to say what the City was going to be doing. She personally asked the National Department if they could perhaps assist the City, considering that they were trying to make a change and trying to make a turnaround, but obviously they were sitting with challenges that were historical. She heard her fellow colleagues’ comments about infrastructure, and there was supposed to be planning. However, she also understood that under the new administration there was a new budget. What she was understanding was that this budget was going to be used to fix up things that were supposed to be paid in the previous year and this was definitely going to be affecting residents going forward. Could the National Department assist with more funding to the City with regard to perhaps providing for more fleet, etc.?

When it came to the petition on the sewage overflow going into the lakes and dams, she had heard the officials and really appreciated the quality report. She just wanted to highlight that again, although the City looked at the infrastructure that had not been attended to all these years, looking at 28 to 30 years, now they were sitting with a problem and it was getting out of control. Could the City perhaps assist with the upgrade of the pump station by Korsman as well, because she thought that generators were needed there? The constant Eskom power outages obviously also had an effect on the ground when it came to further infrastructure damage. “Can we not maybe assist with a generator there to assist with ensuring that the pumps are running and also it is not causing more issues on the ground when it comes to residents?”

What she had not found in the presentation was that while the City had tried to respond to the petition to say this is what they were doing, etc., it was to be remembered that when one looked at lakes and dams, they all sort of linked up to each other. When looking at Korsman's bird sanctuary, it was a major tourist attraction in the Benoni area and they had around 300 different bird species in the sanctuary. If the pump station was not operational, they had issues of overflow. She was worried about a slight crack in the wall that needed attention. She had done an oversight visit there, and she had picked up some issues. The other lakes did not have much sewage overflow flowing in. However, when looking at certain of them, there was obviously a major issue and many residents were complaining, and they were telling the councillors, and the councillors were crying. She knew that it had been escalated to the municipality and she knew from what she had heard now that the municipality was trying its utmost to assist.

However, again, she said that there was major dumping happening in certain areas, which was going into the dams and causing more blockages of the outlet into the streams. This was obviously causing more sewage overflow into more dams than what was actually specified in the petition. So again, she was saying that if they were looking at infrastructure damages or historical infrastructure upgrades that had not taken place, could the National Department of Health not maybe assist the City? Perhaps if the City provided a report to say this is exactly what they need for infrastructure upgrades, this is what they can accommodate in their budget, but these are the extras necessary for us to ensure that we have a clean and safe environment. When we do not have a clean and safe environment, it was obviously not adhering to the Environmental Act. She was wondering if the National Department of COGTA could actually assist with necessary state departments to assess the City of Ekurhuleni to actually get the systems in place and to assist them in not dealing so much with the historical non-service or upgrades.

Ms Bodlani welcomed the presentation. She thought, firstly, that petitions were a way that citizens spoke to their government. If one understood what a petition was, that it was the last resort that residents would use to speak to their government. In fact, she and Ms Ismail had served as councillors in the City of Ekurhuleni, so they understood the challenges that the City faced. They did not come from a place of ignorance in terms of presenting these petitions. Equally, they understood that there was a new administration, and as the Mayor, and the HODs, and the MMCs had said, these were historic issues. Nonetheless, it did not stop them from petitioning Parliament so that the voices of the people could be heard. They came as a last resort, to the Committee, and they were thankful that they were being heard. Service delivery was exactly what was meant to be the core business of the municipality in terms of improving the lives of people. If they were going to then come and say, in Alberton, there are these developments that are going to cost the City millions, but there are issues of vandalism which is because of the threats to the infrastructure, but the residents do not hear anything about prosecutions or arrests, then this presentation was lacking detail. Until and unless it got to a point where people knew that they would be prosecuted, infrastructure such as substations would be damaged. For her, that was really treason, because those were businesses that were creating jobs and paying services to the municipality, and really building industries in the City.

As per the presentation, Alrode was expanding and therefore the City needed to invest in Alrode. However, they could not keep chasing their tail in terms of investing in anything, as a matter of fact, if they were not going to have consequences for delinquents or criminals or vandals who vandalised State infrastructure. She would have loved to hear something come out in terms of what had been repercussions and consequences, to say, “This is how we are going to protect it.” There was a very big active private security presence in Alberton and in Alrode. She did not know if the City was at liberty to tell the Committee what sort of engagement they had had. She knew that the Mayor had gone as far as acknowledging the business people in the Alberton north industries for the work that they did in assisting the City in securing the City infrastructure. “Are we going to get more of those initiatives, so that the burden does not fall on the City?” There should also be some responsibility on the residents to protect the infrastructure that the City provided, because if there was not going to be a buy-in from the residents, then the City would continue reinvesting in the same thing because nobody found value in looking after those things.

The City’s Response
Ms Campbell, referring to Mr Groenewald’s comments. The City had a petitions committee that called petitioners in to make submissions. From there, it went through to the oversight committees and to the departments to come with resolutions and feedback to the various community members. So yes, they were busy streamlining that whole structure, as that whole structure had very antiquated petitions sitting within it. The City was busy catching up with the backlog. Regarding the new petitions that were coming in, she had also set up a service delivery desk within her office which dealt specifically with new petitions coming in and getting resolutions from the various departments as quickly as possible. She agreed that regarding normal day-to-day service delivery challenges, she did find it strange that it came to a COGTA meeting. However, this was her first COGTA meeting, so she would abide by requests of reports that were asked from the City.

In response to Mr Matumba, she agreed with the comments about service providers. They also had a staff complement in the City that had to perform the duties of solid waste collection, and the City should get away from the service provider antics that were used in previous years. However, there were situations where the City was forced to use external service providers –to build up their fleet, and get their fleet back to standard again, which was completely dilapidated from non-maintenance of the vehicles. Therefore, in the presentation, the City also stated, and she did not think that the HOD presented it properly, that it was presently looking at lease versus purchase agreements. When the City reviewed the entire vehicle situation within Ekurhuleni, it was quite clear that no fleet management had taken place. She had now put in a system within the City, so that proper fleet maintenance, and an audit of all vehicles in the City, had to take place. It seemed like vehicles were all over the city and she needed to know where the City’s vehicles were to budget properly. Consequence management, which went through to quite a couple of questions that were asked, would certainly take place on maladministration if that was found.

There was a plan on replacing old infrastructure, specifically when looking at the asbestos pipes for sewerage and water supply. The City could without a doubt present the plan to replace the old pipes that were not functioning anymore, at a date recommended by the Committee. They were quite vigorously reducing their water losses, through the maintenance plan that they were already implementing. Their new budget came into effect from 1 July. So their new budget was talking to many of the concerns that were raised by Members. The IDP processes were also followed, which talked to a lot of the problems as well. She directed questions on their IDP and budget to Ms Msimango. They had put new vehicles and new equipment in the budget, which was currently at the Bid Adjudication Committee and would be coming into the system within the following two weeks or so.

The City had already purchased four compactor vehicles. They were going through the proper procedures through the bid adjudication processes. She had answered the long-term plan on the pipeline and she hoped that assisted Mr Hadebe but the City would table a detailed plan to the Committee including the refuse removal compactors that had been purchased. The magnitude of the solid waste problem had been quite extensive in the previous month. Therefore, they had made alternate plans to rectify this. A lot of the problems came from invoice payments. These were not due to non-payment by the Group Chief Financial Officer (GCFO), but to contracts or paperwork that did not follow the proper processes. She had asked for a forensic audit to take place on all these contracts that were outstanding and reveal what processes were not followed and why.

The forensic audit would also go through to the Impact Committee for further investigations, and from there the City would be able to frame its resolutions on consequence management. The IDP and the budget were definitely talking to each other and the City had channelled a lot of its budget to service delivery departments, not just on solid waste but specifically on electricity. For the City, it was very important to stabilise the electricity grid, and they channelled a lot of finances specifically to the electricity grid for maintenance purposes, using the adjustment budget for the last term of the budget that they had inherited. They had seen a huge difference in the stability within the grid not only for the Alberton and Alrode area that was being discussed by the Committee but in general in all of Ekurhuleni.

Ms Campbell responded to Mr Mpumza. The City had now put in early warning systems, which the presentation had spoken to. The early warning detection would assist them to see where the failures were taking place and rectifying those failures as soon as possible. She thought she had addressed the consequence management that would take place and the asset management system, where they relied on the city manager. The HODs had to make sure that the City knew where their assets were in each department, and that their assets were actually being used for proper service delivery within. To combat theft of [steel] manhole covers, they had introduced covers made from polypropylene. Vandalism still took place, but not to the magnitude that the City had seen previously when the steel manhole covers were used. Those were merely stolen, to resell at certain scrap yards. The City had also brought in concrete covers for their manholes, which were difficult for single individuals to lift and damage.

She thought she had answered Ms Ismail’s question regarding the non-payments and the accountability with the investigations that were taking place currently. In response to Ms Bodlani’s remarks on the vandalism of equipment and the protection of the City’s assets, she said they had had many meetings with various businesses. The businesses were also assisting the City with their security systems that were close by to the substations. This had proven to be a very successful measure. Not only that; the City also had meetings with the Ekurhuleni Metro Police Department and with the South African Police Services (SAPS). They had had meetings with the Commissioner, and the provincial Commissioner, to roll out joint operations against the vandalism of the City’s infrastructure and the criminality that went along with it. If there were any further explanations needed through the HODs or MMCs, she asked that Members request further explanations on things that she did not cover in her report back.

Discussion
Mr Matumba said that Mr Thenga had raised issues of theft and vandalism in his presentation. This was a big problem that the Committee could not ignore. He thought that in their budgeting, the municipalities had to also look into it, how they worked with SAPS, and how the political leadership worked with communities on how they could deal with this matter. People who were vandalising and stealing were people who were living in their communities. So it was up to Members as politicians to really go and deal with the matter and to scrap saying that it was being done by foreign nationals only. Once it was said that this thing was done by foreign nationals then the real culprits are left, because criminals were criminals. Once criminals were given a colour, then that was where they lost it. So they really understood. [Further comment, not translated]

Lastly, most municipalities were not replacing old infrastructure. When they budgeted, they looked at everything except replacing what was built a long time ago. So they had to see to it that when they budgeted, they also budgeted on replacing old infrastructure – not only with fleets and on electricity but with everything, because most municipalities were going there. They had to work on replacing old infrastructure that would also assist them in not using service providers because once the municipality started to use service providers, that was where corruption was going to come into the municipality and corrupt everything. So they had to minimise private business in the [operations of the] municipality by capacitating the municipality to provide services on its own.

Mr Groenewald thanked the Mayor for her answer, for answering all the questions herself, and for not delegating the answers. Although the Parliament had a petition process, exactly what was seen today was that a lot of these problems had already been addressed before they came to Parliament. Communities that had a problem with a municipality could have processes to try to resolve problems before they came to Parliament. Furthermore, when the municipality does have the systems in place, and they do react to the community, and a petition comes to the Committee, then they had the reaction of the municipality at that time as well. That was why he had asked the question, to see if they could get petitions in terms of Parliament more streamlined with their municipalities to say, “What was the answer at that time, and what is the current status or updated status?”.

Gauteng Provincial COGTA Response
Mr Kiba Kekana, Chief Director: Intergovernmental Relations and Traditional Institutional Management, Gauteng COGTA, introduced himself and said that he was responsible for intergovernmental relations (IGR) and related matters. The Provincial Department had been listening to the meeting and welcomed the presentations from the City. They also noted all the comments that were made by Members, and they generally concurred with the approach and the spirit that local government is a Chapter 7 institution, with its original powers from the Constitution. All that they wanted to indicate was that they believed, as a province, that the intergovernmental relations structures that were in place could assist greatly in resolving matters that were related to service delivery. From the provincial side working with national, they had strengthened their capacity to support as well as to coordinate support or mobilise support to support local government. That was informed by section 154 of the Constitution. So in that regard, they had established or developed a model called the Local Government Support Model, for which they had an established regional support team. So in the five regions of Gauteng, Ekurhuleni is a region that was a metro.

There was a regional support team convened by COGTA – national department participated, provincial participated, municipalities participated, and it addressed all the pillars that they knew originated from the Back to Basics (B2B) initiative. It also came from municipality institutional support, which had formulated some key performance indicators. The pillar that Members emphasised throughout the meeting, was the people's first pillar, where there were community development workers, and other government or community-based workers converging in that space. He thought it was an area that would allow the Provincial Department to be responsive, if they utilised it correctly, because they had also introduced the Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) model, which spoke to the ownership of assets and of the infrastructure by communities. There were a number of pillars. What the Provincial Department was saying was that perhaps it was going to be important that they strengthen IGR.  If things were not working well from the regional support team, they escalated them through the statutory IGR structures, from HOD, MMC, and Mayor’s platforms, up until they go to the Premier’s Coordinating Forum, before they go to national.

The Provincial Department also noted that the District Development Model was an attempt and an approach that tried to bring together the various structures of government into one space in order to resolve issues. Lastly, the Provincial Executive Committee established seven provincial war rooms. These war rooms were meant to unblock service delivery blockages. He indicated that there was a war room that dealt with law enforcement. Its priority areas included the protection of infrastructure and cable theft because the security of the infrastructure equalled to revenue protection. The Provincial Department knew that the challenges facing local government related to cash flow. So if the infrastructure was not secured, then revenue was also not secured. The Provincial Department also had a war room that was focused on infrastructure planning and service delivery. In addition, there was a war room that was looking at the general issues of revenue, payment of services, payment by government departments, and payment of service providers.

All of these seven war rooms, including Red Tape, were targeting those areas that were blockages. The Provincial Department also wanted to implore the City, and National, to strengthen their participation in these structures. If that was the case, a lot of issues were going to be resolved. This was so that by that time, if they escalated, they had to escalate something that could not be done using those IGR structures. On the last point that was also raised by Mr Groenewald, he stated that it was around the Integrated Petition Management System that problems had been recognised. The Premier of Gauteng and the executive implored municipalities and National to look at an Integrated Petition Management System so that things did not fall through the cracks. He thought that it was an area of weakness generally speaking. However, the Provincial Department was working on it and they were putting all their efforts into the Integrated Petition Management System.

Discussion
The Chairperson said that he did not want to reopen the discussion on the basis of this input from the province. Perhaps just one point of clarity was to indicate that the Committee was Parliament; they were not the National Government. So their tasks might be different. Number two, if anything came to the Committee that came from the people, it had to be responded to, guided by the Constitution as indicated. For the Committee, if presenters said to the Committee that there was a first pillar, the Committee wanted that pillar to work. If they said there were war rooms, the Committee wanted those war rooms to work. If there was integrated management of petitions, the Committee wanted those to work. The only way the Committee would see that these things were working was when people did not raise issues with them. He thought that sentiment was well expressed. Engaging with those structures, all the Committee wanted was for them to work.

He suggested, as raised in the discussions, that there should be improved communication with the residents of Ekurhuleni. Matters had to be improved locally. One request, which he thought was the outcome of this meeting, was for a detailed response plan with timeframes to be prepared [by Ekurhuleni] in response to the petitions. In other words, the Committee was specific, not general, about issues. The Committee would appreciate all those comments about investigations and consequences as was raised by those who were complaining. He was listening to Ms Ismail talking about historical challenges. Whilst she might know them as historical, they were challenges of the municipality, so they had to be addressed and should be a part of the plan that the Committee would be getting. In other words, when they took over the government, they took over the government with everything. So their plans had to actually take that into account. He thought that Members were just saying it would help them because the people to whom they had to respond to were the petitioners. He thus requested that the municipality consolidate a response with clear timeframes, also informed by some of the questions that Members had raised.

The Committee’s message for the provincial government was to say, as well, that plans that are put in place must be translated into action so that the impact is felt on the ground. Once there is good governance, once people receive services, they would all be happy. This was an attempt to wind up the meeting, and he hoped that within their prescribed timeframe, which would not exceed a month, within 30 days, they would expect this detailed plan. He was sure that the City had listened to the Members in terms of what they were saying in the context of the plan. Within 30 days they would be very happy to receive that response. He thanked the City for attending the session, the Mayor for taking charge of the response, and the petitioners for not giving up whilst this might have been submitted a long time ago. He was sure that everyone was learning as they were engaging with some of these issues, and in the end, the people would take them seriously as they had done in the meeting.

The meeting was adjourned.