WC Adjustments Appropriation Bill (2022/23 financial year) & WC Appropriation Bill: Local Government

Meeting report

Minister’s Opening Remarks

Mr Anton Bredell, Minister of Local Government, said the Department’s budget was R369.8 million and there was emergency funding of R88.8 million to take into account the impact of loadshedding on municipalities. On average, municipalities experienced stage 4, and intermittently stage 6, loadshedding, which had serious consequences for the provision of safe drinking water and wastewater management. The funding would be used to procure emergency backup generators for water infrastructure. In addition, the municipalities had to cater for water and basic services for people moving to Western Cape municipalities.

He said he was excited about the Western Cape’s 15-year water resilience plan, which would be shared with the City of Cape Town at a two-day indaba the following week. The plan would take cognisance of climate change and the needs of economic and population growth. He said that reported water supply interruptions stood at a low 4.9 percent.

He said the Minister of Local Government was tasked with responsibility for Khoisan affairs and the Department had to develop policies to implement the Khoisan Act.

Discussion

Ms C Murray (DA) asked about the additional funding for the Department.

Mr Graham Paulse, Head of Department (HOD), said the funds were to acquire backup generators for water and sewage. An assessment was made of municipalities’ need for critical infrastructure, excluding the City of Cape Town which had provided great support. District municipalities used roving generators and suffered extended loadshedding hours as circuit breakers tripped. The funding disbursed to municipalities was approved two months previously.

Ms M Maseko (DA) asked what the action plan was for sustainable long-term solutions as the generators were a short-term solution. What was the lifespan of the generators?

Ms Murray asked if there were increases or decreases in the budget allocation for the Department. Was there any increase in outages due to environmental concerns or unrest, and was there any budget allocation to deal with possible at stage 8 loadshedding?

The Chairperson asked if there was engagement with municipalities to prevent the generators from becoming white elephants. Was the Department ensuring that the generators purchased were not overpriced?

The Minister said that the team had had a terrible December. They could either do nothing or wait for solar and wind energy, but as they were in the middle of a crisis, they had to do something. The City of Cape Town had assisted, until load shedding went to stage 4 when it asked for the return of its generators as it now needed them. The electrical system was not designed for multiple on and off switching and complications started being experienced with, for example, the quality of water provided. The team therefore had to do something immediately to keep systems running to prevent sewage overflow, and this was what the generators were for. It was not a perfect plan. The biggest expenditure for municipalities was to guard the generators.

Other big companies like Vodacom also experienced serious infrastructure theft problems due to ongoing vandalism. The Department was now looking at alternatives like solarised containers as the grid was seriously threatened and anything could go wrong.

Regarding stage 8 loadshedding, he said that the engineers did not know how the grid would react above that stage.

Mr Paulse said the Department would supply the generators and the municipalities would supply the diesel and see to the maintenance and safety of the generators. The diesel budget was exorbitant. The Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) budget had allocated R1.1 billion and the Department was busy identifying municipalities they would assist. There were also other initiatives to make municipalities less reliant on Eskom.

Mr Colin Deiner, Chief Director: Disaster Management and Fire Brigade Services, said that long loadshedding periods meant that systems were unable to replenish. The Department had modelled risks like fire and floods so that the placement of caches of resources was most appropriate. It was looking at satellite connectivity to ensure communication channels for the Cabinet if there was a blackout. The Department was also putting together specialised equipment sets for a rapid response to areas where it was needed.

Ms Murray asked which municipalities were struggling. Would there be additional support and what form would the intervention take? How much of the R88 million would be spent on diesel and security and how much on generators?

Mr Paulse said there was no provision for diesel, but municipalities’ budgets should reflect an increased diesel budget. Security personnel were not included but the Department would cage the generators as requested by the municipalities.

He said the struggling municipalities were smaller ones with technical capacity challenges and the Department had supported them through the use of engineers from the Department.

Ms Maseko asked if there was any indication of the total costs of implementing the Khoisan Act. She asked about the readiness of municipalities for elections and what was different compared to the 2021 elections. What was the loss of water through lack of maintenance and what was the Department doing to help municipalities identify where the losses occurred?

Ms Murray asked where the four pillars of the response to the energy crisis fell within the budget.

Mr C Dugmore (ANC) asked what had been done so far regarding implementing the Khoisan Act, what the implications were and whether there was any feedback from the national level.

He said loadshedding was frequent and prolonged and that an energy reliance initiative had started three years ago. What was the Department’s involvement, as there was now a new plan? How much money had been spent and what was the projected cost of supplying energy? The cost to the consumer was important. He said R30 million would be spent on pilot projects. This was a concern to him and were the project preparation plans available? When would municipalities receive this funding to add power to the grid and increase energy resilience? He said it appeared the project was still in a conceptual stage while R100 million had already been spent.

In response to the questions, the Department said that at this moment, there was no officially recognised traditional or Khoisan leadership in the province. The Khoisan Act put forward the process that had to be followed by establishing a Khoisan Commission to investigate leadership applications. Applications had opened the previous year and would remain open until the next year, following which the Commission would look at applications until 2026 and hold public awareness campaigns and public hearings. Ultimately a list of recognised leaders would be presented to the Premier and then the process would start to implement the Act. At the provincial level, this would influence the support given as the number of leaders would indicate how much the province could carry in terms of payments to the leaders. The Department had researched what other provinces like KZN had done. The Department was also responsible for the tools of trade. An amount of R6.37 million had been allocated for the MTEF.

On water losses, Members were told that the easy way to monitor water losses was to install water meters to monitor what amounts were going in and out of the municipality.

Mr Paulse said he assumed the question on energy reliance initiative referred to the integrated programme to provide electricity to municipalities that had not previously had access to electricity. This programme started in 1994 and the national government determined which municipalities qualified through predetermined criteria. R1.1 billion was allocated for this, of which the Department received R58 million to develop municipalities’ own generation capacity. The previous day, he had visited extremely energy-constrained municipalities. The Department was investigating alternatives like solar, batteries, and gas to energy, which could take an entire town off the grid or reduce its reliance on the Eskom grid. The Department was busy with pilot studies. It was important to work together with municipalities so that they did not make costly mistakes. The Department would make a final decision the following week on the matter. Market research indicated that it took three months from the start for energy to be supplied to the grid.

Mr Dugmore asked how many meetings were held in the Western Cape where the Khoisan had been invited to hear an explanation of the application process. He said that his previous question related to the Municipal Energy Resilience Project (MERP) launched three years ago. What was the role of the Department in this plan and how much had been spent on it? What was the relationship between the Department and the national Department? Was there a plan for replacing ageing municipal infrastructure?

Mr T Klaas (EFF) asked what the role of the Khoisan would be in the province regarding government institutions? He asked about the Department’s discussions with municipalities regarding the deduction of rent monies from payments made for electricity.

The Chairperson said municipalities would not be financially viable if the water meters war was not won. How many municipalities budgeted for aged infrastructure and was the budgeted money used for its intended purposes? What was expected from the provinces in the process of establishing the Khoisan leadership? Did they just accept the findings of the Khoisan Commission and implement the work of the Commission?

The response was that municipalities had to look at the age of infrastructure. Regarding the water resilience plan, if municipalities ran out of water, they would get a higher priority.

On the Khoisan Act, the response was that there were differences in the implementation practices of the Traditional Leaders and Khoisan Bill. This resulted from the presence of words such as “may”  relating to the establishment of local houses in provinces. There needed to be provision for the recognition of the Khoisan by the province through the establishment of a Khoisan Council which would preserve the cultural practices of the Khoisan, but would work within the parameters of government. The total applications as at December were 53 in total in the whole country, with 34 coming from the Western Cape and five from the Northern Cape. The Department was trying to assist those people that had applied.

Mr Paulse said the Department would use some funds to further raise awareness amongst the Khoisan community and the Department also needed to draft its own provincial legislation regarding the Khoisan Act.
Regarding the MERP, he said that that programme had been allocated to the Department of Economic Development which had transferred funding to certain municipalities. This programme also spoke to private sector enablement while other components of it were grid infrastructure, grid upgrades and energy storage. He said the programme had not generated any megawatts in the past three years but the target was 500MW in 2025 and over 1 000MW by 2032. However, the programme would be overtaken by the new entire energy programme because the objectives that had been set had been overtaken and because municipalities wanted to be less reliant on the Eskom grid.

Ms Maseko asked that more engagements with the Department be scheduled to get more information on the Khoisan Act and how it would be rolled out.

Mr Dugmore said Mr Paulse had mentioned six municipalities but he had not heard mention of George. He wanted confirmation of the municipalities in the programme and the official name of the new energy programme.

Mr Paulse said the name was the Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) and it incorporated the MERP and the renewables plan. The MERP would run parallel to the IRP as the MERP was far advanced. The IRP would include solar farms and the Department would lead the IRP.

He said George was one of the six municipalities; the others were Strand, Drakenstein, Mossel Bay, Stellenbosch and Saldanha.

Mr A Lili (ANC) said he had not heard an answer to the question about electricity payments being used to deduct money for water or rates and that the matter was problematic to him. He noted that a Minister had said it was not illegal and he therefore asked which law empowered municipalities to take such action.

Mr Paulse said the question had been raised many times and that he could take the Committee through the issue.

Mr Dugmore said this issue needed to be consistent with the indigent policy.

Mr Johannes Coetzee, Committee Procedural Officer, said the Department had provided a discussion document on the matter, but he would double-check the distribution of the document.

The Minister said he was excited about the 15-year water plan to be launched the following week.

The Committee adopted reports approving the Budget Vote, with the ANC registering its objections. 

Resolutions

Mr Dugmore proposed that the Department provide the Committee with:
A full report on the Matzikama Municipality, including the status of the forensic report and the circumstances around the resignation of the Municipal Manager.
A full report on the Cedarberg Municipality on the absence of councillors at three consecutive meetings and the Department’s response to these absences.
A full report on all the appointments at Knysna Municipality and the status of all current litigation at the municipality.
A report on the status of the SaamStaan Councillor, Mr Nyuka, who was facing charges of sexual harassment and whether the Speaker had initiated an enquiry into the matter.
A report on its involvement in resolving the dispute at the CP Nel Museum.
The legal opinion of the City of Cape Town regarding their unwillingness to provide answers to questions directed at the MEC for Local Government on matters affecting the City of Cape Town.
A full list of all internal and external legal providers to the Department
A list of all the municipal public accounts committee chairpersons indicating whether they came from the governing party or the opposition parties of that municipality.
A full report on monies spent by the Department and the Department of Economic Development on the MERP and the progress that was achieved. 

Ms Murray asked that the Department share information on the costs of the roving generators. Which municipalities had been assisted? What was done if there were competing demands for the generators and was there coordination with other departments which did something similar?

Ms Maseko asked that the Department give a progress report on implementing the Khoisan Act and that the Department engage with the Committee on the blackout plans that were in place.

The Chairperson asked the Department to give information on the municipalities that had requested support. What support had been requested and how far were the plans to implement these requests?

The meeting was adjourned.