Question NW3534 to the Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs

Reply:

The Department, through the State of Local Government Report, identified the following key contributors to instability and lack of service delivery in local government:

1. Instability in Councils (coalitions and changes in Council) and poor oversight (ineffective, incapacity and dysfunctional committees of Council).
2. Weak administration (vacancies at senior management, incompetence, lack of technical capability, ineffective organograms and shortage of tools of trade).
3. Inability to perform on conditional grants (poor planning, slow/ineffective SCM processes, Business forums, poor performing contractors, and sub-contractors, under expenditure and no value-for-money).
4. Poor and lack of repairs and maintenance of infrastructure (cash management challenges, poor budgeting, poor planning for repairs and maintenance).
5. Poor collection and management of revenue (low revenue base, ineffective revenue generation and enforcement controls).

Steps to address the problems:

The Ministerial outreach was conducted in 8 of the 9 provinces to drive the:

• 1. Implementation of Municipal Support intervention plans focusing on 6 pillars with corresponding solutions to the identified challenges.
  2. Implementation of Schedule 6b of DORA, cost re-imbursement and other measures on MIG expenditure.
  3. Supported Section 139 interventions in distressed municipalities.
  4. The Department also collaborate with sector Departments, SALGA and provinces to build capacity in municipalities to conduct their own affairs.
  5. The Department is also considering the deployment of a team of experts to support municipalities to plan and implement service delivery initiatives.

End.