WEDNESDAY, 10 JULY 2019 PROCEEDINGS OF MINI PLENARY – OAC Members of the mini-plenary session met in the Old Assembly Chamber at 14:01. The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Ms M G BOROTO) took the Chair and requested members to observe a moment of silence for prayers or meditation. APPRORIATION BILL Debate on Budget Vote No 4: Co-Operative Governance and Traditional Affairs: The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Ms M G Boroto): To those who have not been here, be informed that we have got clocks on each side of this table. Your time is recorded there. There is a colour reflecting and once the colour fades you must know that your time is up. No, there is no red colour. It will just be blank. Ok, I will ask the secretary to read the order. The MINISTER OF CO-OPERATIVE GOVERNANCE AND TRADITIONAL AFFAIRS (Dr N C Dlamini-Zuma): Hon Chairperson, hon members, Ministers and Deputy Ministers, Chairperson and members of the portfolio committee, Chairperson of the National and Provincial Houses of Traditional leaders, Chairperson and Deputy Chairperson of the National Khoi and San Council, Chairperson and Deputy Chairperson of the Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities, Deputy Chairperson of Contralesa, Chairperson of the Municipal Demarcation Board, leadership of the South African Local Government Association, members of the Religious and Faith Based Organisation, the Auditor General, leaders of the South African Municipal Workers Union, SAMWU, leadership of Business and Professional Associations, Director-General of the Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs, DCoG, Director-General of the Department of Traditional Affairs, CEO of the South African Cities Network, CEO of Municipal Infrastructure Support Agent, MISA, our very special guests who are with us here today, we are humbled to stand before you to present to you Budget Vote No 4 of the Department of Co- Operative Governance And Traditional Affairs. As I assume my responsibility in this portfolio firstly, I would like to thank my predecessor, hon Dr Zwelini Lawrence Mkhize and wish him well in health. The SA Netball Team, the Proteas which are ranked no 5 in the world and no 1 on the continent, are participating at the Cricket World Cup this week. And of course, Bafana Bafana will be taking on Nigeria this evening, we wish them well. [Applause.] We present this budget vote nine days’ shy of President Nelson Mandela’s 101st birth day who during the first democratic state of the nation address said this about government. “That the government should be inspired by the single vision of creating a people centred society, the expansion of the frontiers of human fulfilment, the continuation and continuous expansion day who during the first the continuation and continuous expansion of the frontiers of freedom. He goes on to say that ‘our definition of freedom must be instructed by the fundamental objectives to restore the human dignity of each and every South African, wherein they have freedom from want, freedom from hunger, freedom from deprivation, freedom from ignorance, freedom from suppression and freedom from fear”. Chairperson, this is 25years of our democracy and I think it is a good time to pause, reflect and make a frank and honest assessment of where we are. Martin Luther King once said: “We are not where we want to be, and not where we were going to be, but we sure are a long way from where we were.” During these 25years a lot has been achieved and we have built a solid foundation for a non-racial, non-sexist South Africa and provided the basic needs to a lot of our citizens. We have indeed established the wall to wall local government. Local government straddles the three spheres of government which are distinctive, interdependent and interrelated. I think we should just remind ourselves of where we derive our mandate as this department on Chapter 3 of the Constitution. Chapter 3 has a lot to say on co-operative governance. I will not read the whole section but I will just read a few extracts from it. It reads as follows: It has to preserve the peace, national unity and the indivisibility of the Republic; secure the well-being of the people of the Republic; provide effective, transparent, accountable and coherent government for the Republic as a whole; be loyal to the Constitution, the Republic and its people; respect the constitutional status, institutions, powers and functions of government in the other spheres; not assume any power or function except those conferred on them in terms of the Constitution; exercise their powers and perform their functions in a manner that does not encroach on the geographical, functional or institutional integrity of government of another sphere. I think this is very important to remember. Of course, local government is a government that is closest to the people. When South Africans experience the government on a day to day they do it through the local government. Therefore, it is everybody’s business as it was once said. The President is correct to say that “We will be adopting a district-based approach, focusing on the 44 districts and eight metros, to speed up service delivery, ensuring that municipalities are properly supported and adequately resourced”. So, local government should actually be considered as the centre of the human development activities. What is our relationship with local government? Cogta, together with the provinces have to support local government and we have to support it according to Chapter 7 of the Constitution, so that it can provide a democratic and accountable government to local communities, ensure provision of services to communities in a sustainable manner, provide social and economic development, promote safe and healthy environment, encourage the involvement of communities and organisations in matters of local government. All communities - even the traditional leaders should be involved in matters of local government. We must then ask a question, have we been able to do this adequately and satisfactory? We must admit that despite the successes over the 25years a lot of challenges remain. We have not eradicated hunger, there is still poverty, and unemployment is stubbornly high, inequality has also grown. Coming back to Cogta. I will start with Cogta at the national level. Yes, Cogta has done a lot over the years but, at the moment we have a big challenge at the national level. Because, our 2017-18 audit was a disclaimer and I am not sure what is going to happen this year. This is a big challenge because as Cogta national we should be the change that we want to see at local government. And if we don’t deal with this it’s going to be difficult for us to support and work with local government when our house is not in order. So, we have that challenge and we are going to work on it. It is common knowledge that municipalities, metros and districts are not all able to fulfil their responsibilities as they should. As we speak, 40 municipalities are currently under section 139, and many more than that are dysfunctional or struggling. We just received a few weeks ago the Report of the Auditor-General which showed that out of the 257 municipalities 18 got unqualified audit opinion with no findings. A total of 101 municipalities had unqualified audits with findings. That situation needs to be worked on and we all have to work with the municipalities to change this situation. The major challenges are weak governance, noncompliance with legislation, poor quality of annual financial management, internal control weaknesses, supply chain management is not good and this leads to poor service delivery. This shows by the anger and frustration on the ground by our citizens who are frustrated and unfortunately they have also become very distractive. The number of major service delivery protests has increased from 27 in 2008 to 237 in 2018. And the trust in government is declining and most of this comes from the sphere of local government. This must tell us that we have to work very hard to change the situation and we have to Khawuleza [be quick]. I will also admit that this is going to be a marathon rather than a sprint, it cannot be changed over night. But we have to work hard to make sure that it changes. Through the Back to Basics Programme which contributes towards improvement of service delivery and municipal audit outcomes, we will ensure that support the distressed municipalities and will also focus on infrastructure planning delivery and maintenance, financial management support, governance and improving administration. It is clear that there is no capacity in many municipalities, this is demonstrated by the fact that only 55 municipalities have at least one engineer and the rest don’t even have an engineer. As a result, we need to help to improve the administrative and executive capacities of the municipalities. We must start by encouraging them to employ competent and capable people in all levels of administration. We must also reinforce our efforts to fight corruption through the promotion of our Anti- Corruption Strategy which we have enhanced by including training and the Municipal Integrity Management Framework, MIS. For those who are corrupt, the law must take its course and there must also be consequence management both at the national departments and at the local government level. Proper oversight on municipalities is key to transparency at all levels, which is why the Municipal Structures Amendment Bill, 2018 provides for the establishment of Municipal Public Accounts Committees, in all municipalities. Their function is to hold the Council accountable for the use of public resources to promote transparency, accountability, good governance, effective financial management, and quality service delivery. What is the role of citizens at local government? Is that role fulfilled? Citizens have an equally important role to play through ward committees, they must participate in the selection of those ward committees and in their work. They must also make inputs and participate in the development of the Integrated development Plans, IDPs. We know that this is not the case in many municipalities. We would like this House especially the members of the portfolio committee to work with us on encouraging municipalities to do that. We commit ourselves to work hard and to be responsive whilst working with all the spheres of government for the people. We accept the responsibility and apologise that through our lack of response and inability to deliver services properly, we have caused this consternation among those who expect services from us. They have been so frustrated that they have become very distractive. We would like to ask them to bear with us and not destroy public property because that property is theirs, schools, libraries, roads belong to the public. If they burn them, destroy them it means that we will not be able to deliver the service they want because we have to start rebuilding what has been destroyed. We appeal that we should all send that message. There is also a big challenge around infrastructure – as I said there are no engineers, there are no technical people in the municipalities, so municipalities are not able to spend their infrastructure grants as they should. Many of them get their grants returned or sent to other municipalities. That is disadvantaging the communities. It is for that reason that MISA was established and is working with many municipalities to do a few things. Firstly, to improve their infrastructure planning and execution but also to build with them the capacity in the municipalities themselves. To also be a rapid response so we are asking that this should be strengthened so that they are able to do their work. In the local sphere, local government and national government are not the only players. Our other part of the department is the Department of Traditional Affairs and they are an important player in that sphere. Our forebears understood that and that is why the ANC was formed in Mangaung with the traditional leaders because our people live in that space and are influenced by that space. So, we commit ourselves to work closely with them at all levels and to work and continue with the work that has started in making sure that they are able to participate in the municipalities. We also are hoping that the President will sign the Bill on the Traditional and Khoisan Leadership Bill, Traditional Leadership and Governance Framework Amendment Bill and the Customary Initiation Bill. The Khoisan one is waiting for the President to sign and we hope he will do that. Hon members, we also are developing guidelines for traditional leadership in the Municipal Council Programmes in order to streamline the collaboration. We are also working with the traditional leaders to look at their tools of trade and that matter is under discussion and as soon as it is completed we will report on that. We are also very pleased that a number of traditional leaders have heeded the call and began the process of identifying land that can be used so that we can indeed have the agrarian revolution in place. They have accepted this and a lot of work is going on and we hope that we can continue because neither the traditional leaders nor government want to see hungry people and land can contribute to the economic development, employment and can decrease poverty. The traditional leaders have requested that there should be a land summit where they can participate and have a view around the issues of land especially land that is held in their areas. We have agreed that we indeed call that summit. Equally important are the issues that traditional leaders have raised on their tools of trade and we will as I said come back to that with the traditional leaders. We are concerns also about the deaths that are happening around the customary initiation but the Deputy Minister will also say more on that. We also want to say a word about the Community Works Programme, CWP. In fact, the disclaimer from government comes from the way that CWP is managed and the model that is being used. We want to say that we would like to change that model and make sure that the model that we use has an impact on the ground, gives the participants skills but does not lead to the disclaimers that we see in the department. We are also work with the school if governance – we have already started discussions with them to develop local government specific modules so that they can work with us and give capacity to the local government both to the executive part of local government but also to the administrative part. We hope that will also assist the municipalities to be able to deal with their responsibilities. We want to also develop an early warning system so that we can earlier when municipalities are not working properly so that we don’t rely on section 139 and section 100 for the province but we rely more on section 154 which is about supporting the municipalities together with the provinces. We want to say to the portfolio committee we appreciate the work they have started doing and the work they are going to do in their oversight but we would like them wherever they go to also let know what they have found so that we work together and assist in trying to resolve issues as quickly as possible. We welcome our budget of R90,7 billion but 94% of it is transferred, only about 6% is left with us. I would like to thank the portfolio committee, the National House of Traditional Leaders, the Deputy Ministers and officials for the work they do and the work we have done in preparing for this budget vote. I would like to request hon members to support this budget. Thank You. Ms A F MUTHAMBI: Hon Chairperson, hon Minister, the Deputy Ministers present here, I have seen some Member of the Executive Council, MECs, of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, CoGTA, from the provinces, hon members, the traditional leaders in our mist, including both the traditional and the Khoisan leadership, distinguished ladies and gentlemen, allow me first to congratulate our newly constituted portfolio committee and the Ministry, also to acknowledge our constitutional responsibility towards the traditional and Khoisan leadership. Furthermore, let me also wish all our reporting entities, the best in their operations, and most importantly looking forward to an honest, smooth and sustained working relationship between all of us. While we appreciate the excellent work done by our government in the past on various service delivery programmes, we need to also remain mindful that climate change and various human induced factors, such as rapid population growth, rapid and uncontrolled urbanisation, ageing and dilapidated infrastructure, increasing rates of inequality resulting from the divisive apartheid past, poor land use planning, poverty, inequality and unemployment, to name a few, continue to expose most of our communities to risks of weather related and human induced hazards. Very often, various disastrous incidents hit our vulnerable communities resulting with losses of lives, their hard-earned belongings resulting with the erosion of their last assets they have worked so hard over the years to accumulate. Sadly, when this happens, these are often the communities without insurance or savings to replace their lost assets. His Excellency President Ramaphosa has set the tone and laid the foundation for the sixth administration. We therefore cannot afford not to align to the imperatives as presented to our electorates. In his 2019 state of the national address, President Ramaphosa reminded us that and I quote: Together with all the nations of the world, we are confronted by the most devastating changes in the global climate changes in human history. The extreme weather conditions associated with the warming of the atmosphere threaten our economy, they threaten the lives and the livelihoods of our people, and unless we act now we will threaten our existence. Guided by the National Development Plan, NDP, it is our responsibility to pursue inclusive, sustainable development that is resilient in the face of climate change. Working in partnership with the private sector, labour and the international community, we will step up our adaptation and mitigation efforts. We need to take a step back and recognize that this is one of the key constitutional responsibilities of government which we, as the collective leadership across all spheres of government, have to work tirelessly and collaboratively to address. It is against this backdrop that our Constitution correctly places disaster management as one of the imperatives for realising effective service delivery and sustainable development. Section 24 of our Constitution provides that, government must be in the forefront in the management of risks of disasters through the introduction of legislative and other measures and those communities and other role players must also make disaster management their responsibility. On Monday, accompanied by both the Mayor of Vhembe District Municipality and the Mayor of Collins Chabane Municipality, we visited the family of the late four and half year old, Precious Nobela, who untimely passed on Sunday 7 July, as a result of an unfortunate disaster the community of Gumbani outside Malamulele, where they experienced a form of alleged food poisoning wherein almost 30 people were hospitalised and unfortunately Precious became a causality, as they were celebrating the graduation of young female initiates. From the incident, it became clear that local capacity to respond to incident is critical and that the support of municipalities collaborating with relevant departments it’s key. I therefore, wish to call upon all Members of Parliament to work hard within their respective constituencies to ensure that avoidable incidents are prevented and that unavoidable disasters are prevented from turning into catastrophic proportions resulting with loss of life, livelihoods and properties and irreversible damages to our environment. This is the utmost homage we can pay to our glorious Constitution and to humanity and it conforms to the thrust of the Disaster Management Act 52 of 2002. I am very much mindful of the outcome of the 2018 Auditor-General, AG, reports, especially in our area of responsibility and to those aligned to our work. We have furthermore noted the short comings and recommendations as presented. Before us is also the Fourth Industrial Revolution, 4IR, agenda as an additional responsibility to all of us, mainly for alignment purposes. So, what does this 4IR, mean for the local government? We must be mindful that the success of 4IR requires full participation and cooperation of the local government and most importantly tribal authorities. This stems from the fact that the foundation of 4IR outcomes requires among others access to broadband infrastructure and services. All these require a pool of resource, that understand and most importantly appreciate and is aligned to change. I call upon the Minister in partnership with other ministries to identify policies that may still be a bottleneck in support to these initiatives; amend and ensure alignment where required. We need outcome based policy framework. It is therefore critical and of utmost importance that local government must prioritise the following areas: information and communications technology, ICT, skill development aligned to 4IR framework; repositioning the role of the chief information officers, CIO and integrating 4IR and ICT into developed Integrated Development Programmes, IDPs. Section 81 of the Municipal Structures Act 117 of 1998, it makes provision for the participation of traditional leaders in municipal councils. More specifically, this section provides for each MEC for local to issue a notice in the provincial gazette which regulates the participation of traditional leaders in the proceedings of municipal councils and to prescribe a role for traditional leaders in the affairs of a municipality. Given the importance of sound co-operative governance between traditional councils and municipalities, we implore all MECs of local government to ensure that these notices are issued as required. In order to ensure consistency across provinces, the Department of Traditional Affairs should develop norms and standards which will guide provinces in this regard. Looking at the AG consolidated general, indeed there are varied reasons for the accountability failures which were provided. Given this situation, it is not surprising that society is disgruntled with often violent service delivery protests becoming more frequent and widespread. But, why does this cancer in local government exist? What is going wrong? What is the root cause? Why is it that there are extremely different levels of performance even for municipalities within the same districts? What must we do to reverse or correct this deplorable state of affairs? Based on the audit outcomes it is evident that there is political interference in supply chain systems leading to award of tenders in a nepotistic manner. We use funds for unfunded mandates not aligned with the planned programmes and projects; also there is inadequate planning capacity and expertise. There are also issue in the main where you find that ward committees are dysfunctional. There are individuals who don’t understand their roles and can’t engage their constituencies in a meaningful manner. Reliance on consultants for work that municipal officials should be doing is also then making municipalities to be worse. So, this are the issues that we need to look out, including situations wherein municipal departments operate in silos with the lack of integration making it impossible to implement better planned, focused and well resourced programmes and projects. We have also seen the elements of the tick-box approach to monitoring and evaluation. Currently, you will find instances where performance of programmes and projects focuses on whether a plan has been implemented or not. Time is not allocated to consider impact and answer the why and how effective questions which would help reengineer performance. We must also focus on how effective our Municipal Public Accounts Committees, MPACs, are, given the status core with regard to financial management in municipalities? The other issue that we need to look at is that we are all aware that bringing change in municipalities is a tall order, because many movers and shakers in that space believe that there is no need to innovate. Are municipalities ready to innovate and adjust the way they operate? As we support this Budget Vote, the department’s vision is that it must be aligned that an appropriate knowledge based workforce that possesses appropriate skills for the future and we must also make sure that we are able to identify and detect changes that occurs in their environment In fact, the department must develop a dashboard for the committee to view as and when required to showcase all programmes of the local government to provide early detection and provide an open engagement model between parties. We are also of the view that with regard to the 4IR programme. ICT was never a nice term to pronounce, we must appreciate that it remains a catalyst for change. We have also noted that the best practices noticed at the municipalities which do well, is the stable leadership that is committed to a strong control environment and effective governance. The senior manager’s fixed term of office between 5-7 years of employment contract are impacting in this as it leads to vacancies and instability in key positions. There is a need for more integrated co-operative governance as we have noted the contestation, fragmentation, duplication of services between spheres of government. Municipal officials and councillors always go scot-free, because no matter how much is squandered or mistakes made there are no consequences for them. This means there is no deterrent for poor performance. It is our view that there has to be consistent, appropriate and swift consequences for transgressions and irregularities. The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Ms M G Boroto): Hon Member! Ms A F MUTHAMBI: Yes. The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Ms M G Boroto): What are you rising on, hon member? Mr W F FABER: Hon Chairperson, will the speaker take a question for clarity, please? The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Ms M G Boroto): Are you ready to take a question? Ms A F MUTHAMBI: No, as I complete. The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Ms M G Boroto): Not ready, continue. Ms A F MUTHAMBI: Both traditional and Khoisan leadership structures must play more prominent roles in ensuring that the municipal business is rendered. Also with regard to communication systems, I think we know instead of deploying good communicators at national government and provincial government, we need to deploy the best. There must be a continuous monitoring of the municipalities audit action plans in order to timeously address the audit findings to be identified and a proactively approach dealing with emerging risks. As I conclude, I want us to reflect on what is the role of councillors in promoting revenue collection from community. What happens during community meetings in terms of encouraging payments of services? I also would like to call our entire entire telecoms provider to assist us with data. Thank you. [Time expired.] Mr H HOOSEN: Hon Chairperson, we extend our compliments to Minister Dlamini-Zuma on her appointment. The DA offers its full support to you Minister, when you put the interest of our country ?rst. We will however, raise our voices when things fall apart. We do not want to see our towns and cities fail, because if that happens, it affects everyone, regardless of which political party they support. We all have to work together to keep the water flowing and the lights burning. In many respects, the lives of our citizens have become better since 1994, yet in many areas, the situation has worsened. This is often due to a lack of accountability. Three years ago, 54 municipalities received a clean audit; today that number has regressed to 18 out of 257. Let's analyse for a moment why we find ourselves in this situation. It comes down to two basic failures, weak governance and weak political leadership. Take for example the drought stricken municipalities of uThukela District and Alfred Duma. Millions of rands have disappeared in tenders whilst the citizens go without water for decades; in Mooi Mpofana businesses and residents will be left in the dark if the municipality doesn't settle its Eskom bill. In the Eastern Cape, the MEC appointed the least competent candidate for the position of Chief Financial Officer in the Sundays River Municipality, yet the other four candidates were more highly qualified - this is why municipalities struggle to maintain good financial health; The Amahlati Municipality is one of 30 municipalities that are struggling to pay their employees whilst others are struggling to stop raw sewage spilling into our rivers and streets. In Limpopo all 27 municipalities failed to improve their audit outcomes, yet they spent R177 million on consultants to help them with their financial management. The same situation prevails in the Free State, where not a single municipality received achieved clean audit. More than R1.2 billion worth of tenders in municipalities across South Africa cannot be audited because basic documents have disappeared. Irregular expenditure has grown to R21 billion and again there will be no consequences; and, a few years ago, the Manase Report presented evidence of massive fraud and corruption in eThekwini. To this day not a single person has been held accountable or sent to prison. It seems that even placing a city under administration is not the solution because more and more of our municipalities are being placed under administration and that list is growing. Although investigations are undertaken, nobody goes to jail. People steal money and instead of going to jail, they get rewarded with other positions. Some of them even end up here in Parliament. Minister, before we start fixing municipalities, we first have to fix your own department. Receiving a disclaimer from the Auditor- General is not a good example to set. There must be consequences for poor performance or else we will see more and more examples of weak governance. This is the basic principle that underpins the Democratic Alliance governments. Which is why they are consistently rated the best run in the country, and then there are examples of weak political leadership. Constant chaos in Nelson Mandela Bay Metro Council caused the budget to be delayed four times already and in the meantime, service delivery is delayed; in KwaDukuza, the Youth League Secretary General has brought the municipality to its knees because he was convicted of murder; in eThekwini, the Mayor is busy mobilizing her supporters to make the city ungovernable because she is being charged for fraud and corruption. Her supporters have now turned on the Municipal Manager and he fears for his life. There are now suspicions that the acting mayor was poisoned during a recent council meeting. In Msunduzi, one of the dozens of municipalities under administration, councillors are refusing to attend council meetings and decisions cannot be adopted. The City Administrator has received death threats for his attempts to get the city back on its feet. Hon Minister, the internal political factional battles in your political party are destroying our towns and cities. These factions are fighting each other instead of fighting for the citizens. There must be consequences for politicians who are working to render municipalities ungovernable. This is treason and they should be sent to jail. Strong political leadership and clean governance is required to turn the situation around. These are the two core principles that we as the Democratic Alliance hold firm in our management of municipalities. This is why life is better for the 15 million people who enjoy some form of DA government in towns and cities across our country because we manage the public purse with honesty, attract more investment and create more jobs. Whether we like it or not, these are facts proven by many independent studies including the auditor general who found that 12 out of the 18 municipalities who received a clean audit are governed by the DA. But it is still not perfect and where we regress, we take firm and appropriate action. Chairperson, the issue of job creation in our country is a matter that the DA takes very seriously. It will form the central focus of the DA administration in this 6th Parliament. Ten million South Africans are walking our streets without jobs. This department can make a considerable contribution towards reducing unemployment, if we create a conducive environment for investment. No business in the world wants to invest their millions in corrupt municipalities where there is no water, no electricity and poor municipal services delivery. If we get our towns and cities working, we will get South Africans working. Hon Minister, you have inherited a mess and we want to offer you our help to clean up that mess. If we work together, we can overcome some of these challenges. That’s why we want to extend our assistance to you and the department, we have a team of qualified people who want to share with you, the lessons we learnt and the interventions we implemented to turn cities around. In the spirit of working together for a better South Africa, we hope that you will accept this invitation today because if our municipalities fall apart, our country will fall into ruin and more South African’s will be left without a job. I thank you. Ms H O MKHALIPHI: Hon Chairperson, the recent audit report by the Auditor General for the 2017/18 financial year paints a bleak picture of a local government sphere that is in deep crisis. The Auditor General report indicated that of the 257 municipalities in the country audited for the 2017/18 financial year, only 18 received clean audits, which is worse than the 33 municipalities that had received a clean audit in the previous year. Only 22 municipalities showed any improvement on audit outcomes, while 63 got worse. The collapse of the local government sphere is as a consequence of a number of factors which we have highlighted here before as the EEF. The first one that cannot be disputed is the corruption ridden nature of local government, wherein ANC leaders behave as if they are mafia bosses, handling municipal finances worse than one handles spaza shop finances. We have seen this pervasive corruption in the implementation of the Evaton and Alexandra renewal projects, which left many of our people desperate for housing and opportunities. If you were serious, minister about clean governance minister, the eMfuleni Municipality would be under administration now. In this municipality, people are still using pit-toilets, there is no road infrastructure, no services, and yet, billions of rands were used for the Evaton renewal project. IsiZulu: Umbuzo omkhulu wukuthi iyephi lemali And Mr Paul Mashatile, who was MEC for Human Settlements in Gauteng at the time must account for these two renewal projects which proved to be cash making frauds for the ANC. In eThekwini, ANC corruption has crippled that beautiful municipality. The Mayor, Zandile Gumede is out on bail, and the ANC is scared of taking action against her. You keep giving leave of absence of 30 days, whilst the people of eThekwini are suffering. Why are afraid of this Mayor, minister? And minister you have a background of this Mayor when you from the National Executive Committee after 2011 local government elections, you were tasked to go and investigate and you found this mayor to be the one who is not needed in local government sphere but we still have that Mayor even today. The Municipalities are rendered dysfunctional by this corruption, and the situation is getting worse because there is no consequence management for officials who are found to have been on the wrong side of the law. It is for this reason that we wanted the Public Audit Act to give the Auditor General wide powers to recommend prosecution of government officials and politicians who repeatedly fail to improve governance systems in their departments. Secondly, we have also stated in this platform before and we don’t mind to repeat it again until you hear us, minister that we’ve got to restructure the way municipalities are financed. Key to functioning local government is the need to restructure the institutional make-up and the funding model for municipalities. As much as this would require policy interventions from high up, this department should be championing calls for drastic changes to the current funding model. The current funding model of municipalities is based on a formula that continues to favour previously advantaged municipalities such as the City of Cape Town and Johannesburg and other big municipalities, which, as a result of biasness in the manner apartheid favoured them, have a more economically developed citizenry. These municipalities can collect rates easily, meaning they can raise their own sources of funding to deliver the services they need to deliver, beyond necessities. But this is not the case for more rural municipalities such as the Matzikama Municipality for example. These rural municipalities depend very much on the allocations they receive from the equitable share, and cannot rely on their citizens, who are largely unemployed, live mostly is low cost houses, and who generally struggle to make ends meet. Thirdly, the provincial sphere of government serves no clearly identifiable purpose, it is a strain on the national budget, and must therefore be done away with. The functions and resources currently given to provinces must be given directly to municipalities, who are at the coalface of service delivery, adding to the proposal we are making here, this institutional transformation must be the dissolution of District Municipalities, to allow for local municipalities to function with fully decentralized powers. If we fail to effect these reforms in the short to medium term, we will have a collapsed system of local governance in our hands. Minister, we cannot continue shying away from asking critical questions about the role of traditional leaders in a constitutional democracy such as ours. While fully respecting African cultures and customs, we must continually ask about the benefits to society of having the institution of traditional leadership as is presently constituted. There has been huge outcry about the forcing through this parliament of the Khoisan and Traditional Leadership Bill, the Traditional Courts Bill, the Communal Property Association Bill and other legislative proposals made by the ANC that give traditional leaders unfettered power to lord over the lives of rural people. There is an urgent need to redefine the role of traditional leaders, in relation to the functions presently performed by municipalities. And we must urgently bring to book those who abuse women, and refuse to allocate land to women in rural areas, patriarchy must fall. The overarching framework present in this budget fails to deal with any of the matters we raised, affecting millions of South Africans serviced by dysfunctional municipalities, and rogue traditional leaders. The EFF rejects this Budget Vote IsiZulu: Inkosi B N LUTHULI: Ngiyabonga Mphathisihlalo, ngibingelele uNgqongqoshe woMnyango kanye nezikhulu ezikhona. Ngibingelele neNdlu. English: The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Mr F Xasa) I want to be patient, but let’s not drown the speaker please. [Interjections.] Order! Order! IsiZulu: Inkosi B N LUTHULI: INingizimu Afrika yizwe elixube abezinhlanga ngezinhlanga okwande kulo ukungalingani. Lokho kusho ukuthi ezokubusa kumele ziqine futhi zikwazi ukusebenza ukuze sikwazi ukuwelela ngisho nangaphesheya ngobuchwepheshe futhi kuqhakambise iphupho lethu esimunye kulo kuhle kothingo lweNkosazana. [Uhleko.] Lo Mnyango ugunyaze ukuba wenze ngcono ukusebenza ngempumelelo kuhulumeni waseKhaya lapho kuzinze khona izinsizakalo okufuneka zithunyelwe emiphakathini yasemakhaya ngoba ohulumeni basemakhaya yibona abaseduze kakhulu nabantu. [Ubuwelewele.] [Uhleko.] Selokhu kwathi nhlo thina IFP siyakwesekela ukwehliswa kwamandla kulabo abasemazingeni aphansi kanye nokubusa abezinhlanga ngokwehlukana kwabo ikakhulukazi khona emazingeni aphansi njengoba sikholelwa ekuthini imiphakathi iyona eqonda kangcono izidingo zayo kanye nezinselelo ebhekene nazo ezindaweni ephila kuzo. [Ubuwelewele.] Ubuholi bendabuko buneqhaza elisemqoka ... [Ubuwelewele.] USIHLALO WENDLU (Mnu F Xasa): Lungu elihloniphekile awume kancane kukhona umuntu ofuna ukukhuluma. English: What are you standing on? There is a microphone on, that is what is disturbing the arrangement here. [Interjections.] UNIDENTIFIED MEMBER: Protect your speaker. Mr W F FABER: Hon Chair, Rule 66 this is not my member, but I think this member is being interrupted which I think is quite rude and it’s also his maiden speech. [Interjections.] I think as a maiden speech, we must respect that. [Interjections.] The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Mr F Xasa): I agree with you. Hon members, let’s please, please ... this is a maiden speech. Let’s respect that. Continue. IsiZulu: Inkosi B N LUTHULI: Ubuholi bendabuko buneqhaza elimqoka obulibambe kulokhu ngoba buyisisekelo futhi buyinqolobane yosikompilo nobuzwe kanye namagugu emiphakathini esiphila kuyo thina bomdabu. Futhi lokhu kungumsebenzi wabo abaholi bendabuko ababewenza kusukela emandulo. Ngeshwa, lokhu kubusa ngokubambisana kuyinto eshiwo ngezindebe zomlomo nje ngulumeni ophetheyo lapho sekwenziwa sengathi kuchithwa icala ngoba phela okwakungamandla abaholi bendabuko sekwaqhwagwa ngohulumeni baseKhaya kanye namaBhodi angamele imihlaba kanye nemikhandlu yezifunda. Lokhu kwenzeka ... English The ACTING HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Mr F D Xasa): Conlude. IsiZulu: Inkosi B N LUTHULI: ngiqondeukuthi ngalokho Mphathisihlalo ukuthiizinto eziningi sezenziwa ngumasipala sibe sibadala sikhona singamakhosi. Izinto eziningi zazenziwa yithina amandla ethu kodwa uhulumeni usewanikeze umasipala. Nokuba kunjalo kodwa ngithi ke iVoti esikuyona sivumelana nalo. [Ihlombe.] Mr W W WESSELS: Hon Chairperson, I firstly want to congratulate the hon Minister with her appointment and I want to say that many South Africans have high hopes for you to fix our local government. Our municipalities are in a dire state as the Minister mentioned only 18 of out of 257 municipalities obtained clean audits in the most recent audit. The Auditor-General, AG, also reported material noncompliance with key legislation at 92% of our municipalities. There are no consequences for those who transgress laws and regulations. In the last month, 113 municipal councils approved unfunded budgets, which is illegal. Municipalities under section 139 administration are in most cases not improving, but actually worsening. One example was yesterday, the sheriff of the court ceased all the banking accounts of Mafube Local Municipality – a municipality in the Free State which has been under section 139 administration for more than two years. There are no more banking accounts. How can that municipality deliver services? How can it pay salaries? It can’t and it is under section 139 administration. There is a complete lack of accountability and lack of political will to actually do something about this dire state. This department has and still have many programmes aimed at supporting municipalities – yet there are no results. Five-years ago, the back- to-basics programme was introduced. It was introduced by the former President Zuma. So, we shouldn’t have heard about vote for it. [Laughter.] However, it is a huge, huge failure. [Laughter.] People are suffering, the basic rights such as the right to clean water is infringed upon. Hon Chairperson, it is true that the department is prohibited from assuming the functions and powers of municipalities. Now, I agree with it, Minister. There should be a separation of powers between the different spheres of government. But the majority of councils who allow maladministration, who fails to table their annual reports, who approve unfunded budgets illegally, who appoint unqualified chief financial officers, CFOs, directors and municipal managers are – waiting for it – ANC councils. Is there some form of schizophrenia? The ANC members are national level – Ministers. Even the chairperson of the committee stands here and criticises these municipalities. They say you shouldn’t do that. You are very wrong, but why don’t you act against those members. They are ANC members. You have internal disciplinary processes. Why don’t you act against those councils who appoint people and allow people to steal the money of the people out there? [Interjections.] There is no excuse for the ANC government to say that they cannot act because you can act internally. You can act against those people and those councillors. The past can be blamed for a lot of things, but it cannot be blamed for officials and mayors who are stealing the money. It cannot be blamed for the misuse of funds by current mayors, officials and councillors. It cannot be blamed for tender corruption, Chair. We need smaller municipalities, Chairperson. The Municipal Demarcation Board before a local government election will, once again, most probably, demarcate and make municipalities even bigger against the recommendation of the Finance and Fiscal Commission because that is being ignored. Our towns and regions have been merged to form large municipalities of metro councils, but the only thing that has improved is the remuneration of councillors and top officials. We need smaller municipalities with one town per local municipality. That will save our local government system. The ANC is using the municipalities as cadre deployment. Our municipalities should appoint the best people to do the job and serve the residents. They should appoint the best service providers. Stop the engineers from Cuba bilateral agreements and appoint South African engineers. Who they are? There are lots of South African engineers out to do those jobs. Minister if you fail, it’s not going to be because of your department, but it is going to be because of the political will of yourself as a senior ANC leader who would not act against those councillors who transgress. [Interjections.] I ask you, act against them. [Applause.] The DEPUTY MINISTER OF CO-OPERATIVE GOVERNANCE AND TRADITIONAL AFFAIRS (Mr P TAU): Hon Chairperson, Ministers and Deputy Ministers, chairperson and members of the portfolio committee, hon members, chairperson and members of the house of traditional leaders, president and leadership of Salga, leaders of Chapter 9 institutions and entities, distinguished guests and ladies and gentlemen, allow me to acknowledge the strong and decisive leadership our Minister, the hon Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, is demonstrated as she steers us both as the Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs and as a sector towards the realisation of the vision of the National Development Plan, NDP. The 1998 White Paper on Local Government is a benchmark to compare what we envisaged in 1998 and the realities in 2019. These realities are reflected in the NDP and our own departmental strategic documents. Today, local government is confronted with the following challenges: governance, financial management and administration challenges; nonviable municipalities due to apartheid spatial planning; and systemic issues around powers and functions. In articulating our common aspiration encapsulated in the NDP, we talk to the injunction that South Africa belongs to its entire people. It is a country where we have confronted effectively the impediments and untangled the bottlenecks that inhibit our abilities. The NDP projects a future where and I quote: Our homes, neighbourhoods, villages, towns, and cities are safe and filled with laughter. Through our institutions, we order our lives. The faces of our children tell of a future we have crafted. We have to achieve what we have set for ourselves in the NDP for the current and future generations. In crafting our vision for local government, we said; in the White Paper that municipalities will be adequately capacitated with requisite powers to raise revenue through various mechanisms. However, the ability to raise own revenue differs across municipalities because of the normative apartheid divide between rural and urban areas and within our towns and cities. Despite the challenges, our support to municipalities to protect and grow their revenue base yields positive results. Between March 2018 and March 2019, collection rate has increased in certain municipalities, for instance, at Emthanjeni Local Municipality the collection rate increased from 71% to 98%; Endumeni Local Municipality, the collection rate increased from 83% to 92%; Enoch Mgijima Local Municipality, the collection rate increased from 54% to 99%. We shall intensify our efforts to increase the rate of revenue collection in these and other municipalities. Given the systemic, financial and governance challenges our municipalities experience, such as population growth, low infrastructure maintenance rates, shrinking budgets and low revenue base, there is a need to change the course in how we generate revenue and to ensure that there is equitable share in revenue that will result in long-term viability of local government. Perhaps there is also room to explore an equitable fiscal dispensation that will be considerate of the assigned mandate and the responsibilities of, and undertaken by local government. The urban-rural divide is not only evident in unequal municipal revenue collection capacities but is also highlighted in spatial inequality, in the urban-rural divide and even within cities themselves. As such, there is an urgent need to pursue aggressively spatial justice that promotes inclusive urbanism. We must be bold in transforming persistent apartheid spatial patterns that continue to reproduce poverty and inequality. We must do this with a view to locating the working class and the poor closer to work opportunities and amenities. One available mechanism to address these spatial inequalities is to change the course in identifying strategic nodes and corridors in line with the National Spatial Development Framework. This includes nodal points that enable greater integration. By inclusive urbanism, I refer to the centrality of cities and towns in shaping fortunes of the people and the supportive spatial ecosystems. Inclusive urbanism underscores centrality of cities in provision of human rights for all people, irrespective of class, race, geography and ideology. Inclusive urbanism is synonymous with green urbanism and smart cities which highlight effects of our carbon footprint on the supportive environment. Why do we need smart cities? Figures tell the story best: 63% of people in South Africa reside in cities; by 2030, this number will rise to 70%. We should strive that the majority of the population should be living in cities characterised by, amongst others, connection through seamless, integrated transport system, integrated sustainable human settlements, homes connected to high-speed broadband and nascent technologies, smart metering grids and interconnectedness. Since local government is at the coalface of and for basic service delivery, it is reassuring to hear the President constantly referring to developmental local government. The White Paper stipulates that developmental local government should be committed to work with citizens and groups within the community to find sustainable ways to meet their social, economic and material needs and improve the quality of their lives targeting women in particular, the disabled and the youth. Realisation of the socioeconomic rights is paramount not only in addressing the legacy of apartheid but in encouraging community participation by making sure municipal councillors empower communities. We must enable and facilitate active citizenry through amongst others, our ward committees. This is said because at present, ward committees are sites of serious and damaging political contestation between various parties and within parties. And as a result, communities disempowered by such contestations are more likely to resort to protest, damaging public property as a way of venting their anger to government and lose trust in state institutions. In his state of the nation address, President Ramaphosa challenged us to make our municipalities centres of economic growth. We shall work towards realizing this imperative; fully aware that making our municipalities centres of economic growth requires revival and activation of local economic development initiatives and putting them on the agenda of all municipalities. Let me conclude with a few suggestions we should consider as the executive and Parliament: Firstly, we must elevate the status of municipal rates and taxes to be on par with other taxes of the national government to improve collection in municipalities. We need a social compact between the government, labour, business and civil society as this will assist in protecting and helping our municipalities to provide basic services to every community. Secondly, in implementing the NDP and the Integrated Urban Development Framework, IUDF, we must accelerate the implementation of land use management in our cities and towns so as to reverse the inherited apartheid spatial structure. Thirdly, through the adoption of a district-based approach that focuses on the 44 districts and 8 metros, we should speed up service delivery and to ensure that municipalities are properly supported and adequately resourced. In this regard, we shall work towards strengthening co-operative governance through a co-ordinating model that addresses integrated planning, budgeting and coherent implementation in the 52 impact zones. Lastly, on the very concerning issue of audit outcomes of our municipalities, we shall focus more on strengthening governance, financial management and administration to achieve functional municipalities, characterized by strong leadership, management and oversight, accountability and consequence management. Hon members, I think it is important to state here that, we have under the leadership of the Minister hit the ground running. We have interfaced with the issues in Alexandra, Emfuleni and Mafikeng. We have also addressed matters of municipalities in the North West and areas such as Maluti-a-Phofung. Indeed, we are working on ensuring that local government delivers to the people of this country. Thank you very much. [Time expired.] [Applause.] IsiXhosa: Mnu N L S KWANKWA: Mandibulise Sihlalo weNdlu. Akufuneki nokuba sibesikhumsha kule nto kuba kwaba masipala kukwaBamb’ezakhe phaya. Yingqushu nje ongakwazi nokuba uza kuyiqala ngaphi uyibhekise ngaphi. Kaloku maqabane masiyicacise oku kwekati emhlophe ehlungwini ukuba awusoze ukwazi ukuqokolela imali koomasipala. Zonke ezi zinto niza nazo zokuba nifuna ukuphucula ukuqokelelwa kwemali koomasipala nibe nithetha ngoomasipala abahluphekileyo. English: Instead of reigniting growth and stimulating those economies so that ... IsiXhosa: ... abantu bakwazi ukuqesheka kubekhona imisebenzi ukuze babesendleleni yokwazi ukuhlawula iirhafu. Siza kuthi mabazihlawule beyithatha phi imali? Ndiyayibulela kwaye ndiyithanda into yokuba nithi iinkosi neekumkani niza kuzihoya. Kaloku ndulo phaya beniziphethe ingathi ngoonga’nga’nga’ iintloko zakwaHenene eBhayi ningasebenzi nabo ngendlela. Kuza kufuneka ukuba sigade ukuba amandla enizinika wona aze angacinezeli amalungelo abantu. Liyinene ke elo kuba lixhala elisuka ebahlalini. Ndifuna ukuthi mna le mali inikwa esi sigaba soorhulumente basemakhaya incinci ukuze ikwazi ukumelana nezidingo neenkonzo abantu abazifunayo. Kudala sayicikozela ke le nto sibane siyibhekisa ngapha nangapha sibe singayenzi. Ukuba uyaqwalasela uninzi lwaba masipala bahleli bengenanto kuba basebenzela abantu abahluphekileyo. Anizukwazi ukongeza imali enibanika yona ukuba anikwazi ukuphucula izakhono koomasipala ukuqinisekisa ukuba imali xa ifikile isetyenziswa ngendlela. Le ndlela niqhube ngayo yoomasipala abangama-257 kodwa li-18 kuphela elenze ngendlela eyiyo kuhlolo-zincwadi ibinento yokwenza nolonyulo lakulo nyaka. Ndithi ke loo nto mandiyihlebe. Ndiqinisekile thina bantu bakwaziyo ukuthatha iintonga singayinuka le mali sifumanise ukuba ibiwe ngobuninzi bayo yaze yasetyenziswa kumalungiselelo nokugaya inkxaso kulonyulo ebelukhona. Ndifuna ukwenza umzekelo ophilayo kule nto yokubiwa kwemali kwaba masipala ngelithi kuphinde kugrogriswe ezi nkosi. UNkosi uMcacisi Mabona Kwankwa kwathiwa bekukhutshwe iibhasi kwingingqi yakhe ngethuba lenkonzo yesikhumbuzo sokufa kukaNelson Mandela. Zange kufike nebhasi enye le ngelo xesha. Wathi xa ebuza loo nto yeebhasi wathunyelelwa umyalezo omfutshane ngaba bantu benu be-ANC bemgrogrisa ngokumgqithisa amafu ukuba akanangqondo. Wathi kuba engumntu omdala wanyukelwa ziiswekile. Kungelishwa lokuba ngoku akasekho kwaye ngela xesha wayephila wayengafuni ukuba ithethwe loo nto. Kuqhutywa njalo kwaba masipala kwaye neziniki maxabiso zikhutshwa kwiintlanganiso zikaKhongolose. [Uwelewele.] Injalo, zikhutshwa kwezi ntlanganiso ze-ANC niphinde nizothuse xa iincwadi zingangqinelani xa ziphicothwa. La masela. IsiZulu: Nk P P XABA-NTSHABA: Sihlalo ohloniphekile, Ngqongqoshe ohloniphekile uMama uNkosazane Dlamini-Zuma ... [Ubuwelewele.] English: The ACTING CHAIRPERSON (Mr F D Xasa): Order! Order! IsiZulu: ... oSekela Ngqongqoshe uMnu u-Bapela noMnu u-Tau, amakhosi ahloniphekile ezwe lakithi, amaLungu ahloniphekile ePhalamende, iziphathimandla zoMnyango Kahulumeni Wokubambisana Nezindaba Zendabuko, ngizizwa ngihloniphekile ukuma lapha ngethule uhlelo lwezimali zomnyango womasipala ... English: The ACTING CHAIRPERSON (Mr F D Xasa): Order hon members! IsiZulu: ... kanye namakhosi, i-Budget Vote 4; English: During the state of the nation address President Matamela Ramaphosa had put it clearly that this sixth democratic government is a caring government inspired by the plans to have working local government and seek to end poverty in our community. [Applause.] IsiZulu: Ngqongqoshe ohloniphekile, singalikhuphula kanjani izinga lomasipala ukuthi bakwazi ukusebenza ngokuzimisela nangokwethembeka bangahluleki futhi bakwazi ukugcina izimali zikaHulumeni ziphephile. English: As the President said that let us grow South Africa together. In the election manifesto the ANC remained focused on issues that we implement the commitment we made during the election campaign. IsiZulu: Sihlalo, ngomhlaka-8 kuMeyi ngo-2019 abantu baseNingizimu Afrika baphuma ngobuningi bayovota bevotela inhlangano ye-ANC ukuze iphathe isihlandla sezithupha. [Ihlombe.] English: The ACTING CHAIRPERSON (Mr F D Xasa): Order hon members, please let us allow the speaker to be heard. IsiZulu: Nk P P XABA-NTSHABA: Ngqongqoshe ohloniphekile ... [Ubuwelewele.] English: The ACTING HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Mr F D Xasa): Order! IsiZulu: Nk P P XABA-NTSHABA: ... siyabonga kuHulumeni kaKhongolose, usebasebenzele kakhulu abantu baseNingizimu Afrika, noma kunjalo, kusekhona la kushoda khona okufanele akwenze ukuqhubekela phambili nokusiza abantu bakithi ngoba kubonakala ukuthi bonke omasipala banenkinga efanayo ekulethweni kwezidingo zabantu bakithi, njengokuhlukaniswa kwemikhukhu emalokishini ehlangahlangene, phecelezi i-realignment, ukuze kubekhona imigwaqo yokuthi uma umkhukhu usha noma mhlawumbe kugula umuntu, ikwazi imoto yeziguli ukungena ngaphakathi ithathe umuntu ogulayo noma izicishamlilo zingene zikwazi ukuchisha lomkhukhu oshayo ungaze ushe uphele nya. Kwezinye izindawo ngqongqoshe ukhona ugesi namanzi kodwa kwezinye izindawo awukho ugesi, awekho amanzi, azikho izindlu zomxhaso, imigwaqo ayikho, njengakumasipala waseMzinyathi ... [Ubuwelewele.] English: Ms M S KHAWULA: Point of order Chair! The ACTING HOUSE CHAIRPERSON Mr F D Xasa): Hon member, hold on, let us hear this. What is the point of order? [Interjections.] IsiZulu: ... esigodini saseMashunka kwisigceme-6 lapho abantu khona bathenga amanzi ngemali yabo yezimpesheni. Ngqongqoshe ohloniphekile, siyaxolisa kakhulu kubantu base-Sekhukhune, sixolisa kakhulu ukuba bathenge amanzi benedamu elikhulu phambi kwabo lamanzi. Futhi-ke siyazi futhi siyabona ukuthi ngeke bakwazi ukuphuza amanzi angahlanzekile, kufanele lamanzi ahlanzeke njengoba bathenjiswa yimayini yathi ibabekele u-R13 million ukuthi izohlanza lawomanzi ukuze akwazi ukusatshalaliswa emizini yabantu. Akukaze kwenzeke lokho kuze kube yimanje. Ngqongqoshe sithi, siyabonga kumasipala wase-Senqu kwisifunda i-Chris Hani ukuba nawo ube ngomunye wabenze kahle kulaba abangu-18 abenze kahle. Sihlalo, sinenkinga yabantu abamhlophe abasasibukela phansi isithunzi somuntu omnyama. Kwazulu- Natal, eMsinga, endaweni phakathi kwakaNobamba, emfuleni uMsuluze, umlungu uza namanabukeni angcolile ewathwele ngeloli afike awachithe phakathi emfuleni uMsuluze, asuke lamanabukeni ngomfula uMsuluze ayongena oThukela, njengoba sazi-ke Ngqongqoshe ukuthi akubona bonke abantu abanamanzi ahlanzekile. Laba bantu-ke abakhe kuleyo ndawo, abagudla leloThukela, bayaphuza lawomanzi engcolile enjalo bangenwe yizifo bagule. Ngifuna ukusho Ngqongqoshe ukuthi u-City of Johannesburg, la ngibuya khona, sinenkinga e-Ivory Park yamapayipi aqhumayo nsuku zonke, indle igijima phakathi emgaqwen, ihamba nabantu. Lapho kuphethe umshado, kuphethe umasipala wokuphatha ngokubambisana (umshado) [coalition]lapho eGoli la ngibuya khona. ECity o Tshwane, e-Ga- Rankuwa ... [Kwaphela isikhathi.] izindlu ziyawa, amapayipi ayaqhuma, abantu bagijima nendle [amakaka] khona lapho. Siyasiseka lesi Sabelomali soMnyango Kahulumeni Wokubambisana Nezindaba Zendabuko. Siyabonga. [Ihlombe.] [Ubuwelewele.] Ms T L MARAWU: Hon Chair, hon Minister this is a very difficult or complex sphere of government, it where the tyre touches the tar but we do not doubt your capacity. Looking at the core function of this department, that of ensuring that all municipalities perform their basic responsibilities consistently by putting people and their concerns first. Minister, looking at the formula of allocating equitable share to municipalities, you will be unable to full fill the mission that you have as the department. The formula currently is addressing and assisting the municipalities that are financially viable, disadvantaging the most rural municipalities which have no revenue. The sooner the better hon Minister, embark on the review of the formula of allocating equitable share to different municipalities, then you will be able to full fill your dreams. What we are saying on the same venue, you have to come closer to them in terms of monitoring the utilisation of those funds because looking at the recent audit outcome, it is an indication that, it is not necessarily that there are no funds but the misuse of the funds at that level. That is the causal factor of the recent audit outcome. Your, wasteful as well as fruitless expenditure, and no consequence management which is taking place. If in your MinMECHs you make it a point that the MEC accounts on the progress report in terms of implementing the consequence management both on officials and politicians because, you will find out that the mess that is done at that level is not only of officials even the politicians, are swimming in the same pool. Coming to the issue of assisting municipalities, there are lots and series of investigations that are taking place at that level, but unfortunately all the recommendations from the different investigating units are implemented because of different fractions that the ruling party belongs to. It will depend... IsiXhosa: ... ukuba ngubani na loo mntu, ... English: ...then that resolution will be implemented. The sooner the better we come out of actions and put the people first that will assist the minister in terms of fulfilling her dreams. The valuation of Chapter 3 of the Constitution that of corporative governance... The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON: Your time is up hon member. Ms T L MARAWU: ...that will assist you because different departments APPs that are not known in the local government sphere. The sooner, the better they come closer to that, will assist them to implement. Coming to the traditional... [Time expired]. The ATM supports the budget. Mr G G MPUMZA: Hon Chair, Minister and Deputy Ministers, the National Chair of the Traditional House of Leaders, treasured guests in the gallery. I stand before you very aware of the momentous times that we are traversing. These times also demand of us to regularly account to this August Assembly about the work entrusted on us by the electorate. Hon Chair, the institution of traditional leadership in South Africa and the African Continent, stretches into antiquity, representing an unbreakable bond between our people’s past and the present. It is a living reminder of who we are, where we come from and of the tradition that sustains us as well as the value that guide us. The traditional leadership institutions however, do not only represent a link to our past but an essential part of our future. Hon Chair, perhaps it is important to capture the historical moment, the main content and the task of our national democratic revolution has been and is the liberation of the Africans in particular and blacks in general. Rural women, youth, traditional leaders and kings are part of that motive force. Essentially, our National Development Plan, NDP, has been to liberate the white community from the false apartheid ideology of racial superiority as well as the attendant pressure of oppressing others. The ANC has envisaged that: The institution oh hereditary rulers and chiefs shall be transformed to serve the interest of the people as a whole in conformity with the democratic principles. Over the 25 years of the democratic rule, the ANC has made great efforts to transform the institution of traditional leadership by salvaging it from the tainted colonial past and democratise it in accordance with the Constitutional imperatives. It is therefore on that ground Chair, and the belief of the ANC that the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa recognises and acknowledges the status and the rule of the institution of traditional leadership in the system of democratic governance. It provides for the continued authority and the function of traditional leadership in accordance with the traditional law and the broader legal framework of traditional to participate at the local government level in rebuilding and renewing the democratically ethical state as the current mandate of this government. Chairperson, the birth of democracy in South Africa has provided for the recognition of diverse cultures, land and legitimacy of traditional institutions. Thus, the role of traditional leaders and traditional institutions becomes paramount in advancing nation building and social cohesion within the communities over which they preside. To this effect, several pieces of national and provincial legislations have been effected for the establishment of the Houses of Traditional Leaders to define the relationship with the three spheres of government in South Africa. The deepening of democracy in co-existence with institutions of traditional leadership must be measured by the quality of life of the ordinary people, men and women, young and old rural and urban being an outcome of sustainable co-existence. Hon Chair, inline with the strategic plan of the department, and vision of the NDP of transforming society and unity, inline with the call of the President. Traditional institutions become relevant vehicles to advance this nation building and social building. It is in the traditional institutions that racism, abuse, xenophobic attitudes, and any other backward attitude against other cultures, based on difference of gender, race, religion should be confronted and be defeated. In pursuit of the NDP and the strategic plan of the department to achieve building an integrated and inclusive of a rural economy, traditional leaders ... The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Ms M G Boroto): Hon Tlou, I am sorry to say that your time has expired. Mr G G MPUMZA:... play a pivotal role...[time expired] Hon Chair, the ANC supports this budget vote Thank you [Applause]. Afrikaans: The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Ms M G Boroto): Agb lid Opperman van die DA. The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Ms M G Boroto): Sorry madam, my apologies, continue hon Sibisi. IsiZulu: Mnu C H M SIBISI: Sihlalo ... ILUNGU ELIHLONIPHEKILE: Usho entshweni ... [Akuzwakali.] Mnu C H M SIBISI: ... impela ... English: Madam Chair, hon Ministers, Deputy Ministers, hon members. The NFP welcomes and supports the vote. But we wish to put some concerns ... IsiZulu: ... mhlonishwa, uNgqongqoshe, ukuthi, osekushiwo la ngomasipala obaphethe, siyocela ukuba ukubhekisise. Iningi lomasipala libonakala lingakwazi ukuletha izinsiza ezidingwa ngabantu ikakhulukazi amanzi. Ngiphuma e-Alfred Duma, eMnambithi, la umasipala wakhona uphethwe yinkabi engadubuli iyabulala kodwa iyimeya. [Ubuwelewele.] Nk M S KHAWULA: Awulethe la thina siyikhombise! Mnu C H M SIBISI: Abantu baseMnambithi, Ngqongqoshe, abanawo amanzi. Umangabe uthi uyokhuluma nezikhulu zoThukela, kunensizwa yakwaKhumalo lapho ekuthiwa uQitha, ayishayi ngenhlamvu iyabulala, ngeke uwathole amanzi. Sicela-ke ukwazi ukukulungisa ... [Ubuwelewele.] English: The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Ms M G Boroto): Hon Sibisi, just hold it. Yes, hon Mahlobo. [Ubuwelewele.] Why are you rising hon member? IsiZulu: Mnu M D MAHLOBO: Sihlalo, nginephuzu lokukhalima okuphambukayo. Ilungu elihloniphekile lenza izinsolo ezibucayi ngomunye umuntu ongekho endlini yesiShayamthetho. Uma kufanele ukuthi ayibeke lendaba kumele eze nesiphakamiso esiyisisekelo. English: The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Ms M G BOROTO): Hon Mahlobo, with those that are not members, there is no need for a substantive motion, but they have a recourse from where they are, that they can deal with it. Thank you. IsiZulu: Mnu C H M SIBISI: Angibonge Sihlalo, okubuhlungu ngikhuluma ngento ethinta abantu. Ngikhulume ngento eyenzeka ngempela, hhayi ngomzekelo. [Ubuwelewele.] English: Hon Chair, as the department rolls out the second phase of the back to basics programme with additional three pillars, which is disaster management, special transformation and local economic development that is designed to ensure that all municipalities perform their basic responsibilities and functions without compromise and fear. It was earlier that Durban experienced devastating floods which led to damage estimated at R650 million. The additional R1,2 billion once off amount for immediate drought relief to affected sectors such as water, agriculture and environmental affairs assisted in this regard. We cannot ignore that a large percentage of people are available to work and have taken active steps to find a job but they cannot find employment. The report indicates the South African economy is unable to absorb the labour of people that are willing to and able to work. The 0.5% allocation increase is welcomed in this regard. The NFP believes that the existing infrastructure must be well maintained and that communities must be encouraged to take care of it. Responsibility, which is one of the basic obligations of citizenship, must be a value we should all cherish and aspire to. Government has to be responsive to the needs of our people. The NFP believes that the strengthening of local economic development by partnering government and business, and the stimulation of ongoing competitive, inclusive and sustain able local economies, are important. Finally, the question of expanding the role and functions of traditional leaders ... IsiZulu: ... ooNdabezitha ... English: ... is still an outstanding matter which needs to be dealt with [Time expired]. The DEPUTY MINISTER OF CO-OPERATIVE GOVERNANCE AND TRADITIONAL AFFAIRS (Mr K O BAPELA): Hon Chairperson, hon Minister, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, hon Deputy Minister, Parks Tau, hon chairperson of the portfolio committee, Faith Muthambi, all hon members present, Chairperson of the National House of Traditional Leaders, Inkosi Mahlangu and the delegation, Chairperson of the Khoisan National Council, Mr Le Fleur and delegation, MECs for Cogta and Co-operative Governance, Human Settlements and Traditional Affairs, Coghstas from provinces, Salga led by the President Cllr Nkadimeng and the delegation, CRL Commission Chairperson, Prof Mosoma and the delegation, Contralesa led by its Deputy President, ladies and gentlemen, the people of South Africa renewed the mandate of the governing party once again, and we will appreciate that the elections have come and gone. However, service delivery remains on top of our priorities. The people have spoken. They pointed out to the lack of service delivery and are calling for prompt action. The Minister and hon Mpumza have already covered the subject matter of the traditional leaders. I’ll then punctuate on some of the other areas. The Department of Traditional Affairs has identified four priorities for the sixth administration which are aligned to the governing party election manifesto, the NDP and the department’s mandate: One, social economic activities focusing on agriculture, heritage and cultural tourism, creative industry and mining to create jobs and grow the rural economy and reduce poverty. They have the land as traditional leaders and the people. What they need is capital and machinery to conclude on the four factors of production. We therefore, hope that those with capital and machinery will join hands and invest in that area so that we could turn the rural economy around. On social cohesion, to use culture, tradition and customs to contribute to social cohesion and nation-building; three, to strengthening the institution of traditional leadership towards responding to the needs of the people, advocating and also working with government at local, provincial and national levels to improve service delivery especially in the rural areas; and lastly, to play a critical role in the restoration, protection, and promotion of our African value system in an evolving society as custodians of culture, tradition and customs, as alluded to in the Constitution. His Excellency, President Ramaphosa, during the state of the nation addresses of 2018 and 2019, emphasised that traditional leaders are the bedrock of our society. As a result, he made a pronouncement calling on traditional leaders to lead socioeconomic activities in their communities through the Agrarian Revolution programme. The President spoke again about Invest Rural during the opening the opening and debate of the National House of Traditional Leaders in February 2019. In this regard, obviously the invest rural is for us as government and everybody else to respond to the issue of roads in the rural areas, water access, and broadband also so that they can enjoy all the benefits that the urban people are enjoying, access to communication, electricity, agriculture and agroprocessing, mining and beneficiation including the human settlement aspects. I had an opportunity to visit some of the projects that the traditional leaders are involved in such as Farm in a Box, the project which has been piloted in Mpumalanga in one of the traditional communities. This is a feedlot system, which contributes to food security. The programme can be rolled out to upcoming farmers in rural areas. I also visited Nkosi Dube in KwaZulu-Natal, Ekholweni Traditional Councils where individual households and women cooperatives are planting Amadumbe, which is a favourite nutritious traditional meal for food security. And in addition, they are now planting for the demand in the industry for the production of chips such as Simba Chips, Doritos, Lays, etc. That is a very good initiative to has to be supported. Through the National House of Traditional Leaders, an amount of about R23 million has been secured through the National Lottery Commission for the implementation of the Agrarian Revolution in Traditional Communities. The Department of Traditional Affairs will facilitate the process of assisting the traditional leaders and their communities with the development of bankable business plans and project sustainability. During the 2018-19 financial year, the Department of Co-operative Governance, through the Community Works Programme, which is one of their subprogrammes on agriculture and food security, made available an amount of R100 million. Fourteen traditional communities benefitted towards the implementation of the programme in the following provinces: Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and North West, for among others, to do the vegetable farming, goat farming, poultry, provision of inputs mechanisation, seeds, fencing, de-bushing and the establishment of Farm in the Box to mention just a few. The traditional leaders have set aside one million hectares of land where these projects can be piloted and expanded so that, indeed, more and more of our people can benefit from what they grow on land. That could then end poverty as the President said, that in the next 10 years we need to say that hunger is gone. Secondly, the traditional leaders say, once these pilot projects have succeeded, they are ready with their communities to add six million hectares of land to be made available for those who may want to come and use the land. The land is available. It is in communal hand and in trust with the state. However, it is in the management of the traditional council, communities and traditional leaders. So, all those who have money or finance can approach and partner with traditional leaders. Amongst the communities that received funding for the implementation are the Hagebe Community that was assisted with the inputs mechanisation, the eMpangisweni, KwaNyuswa, Ndelu, KwaJali Traditional Communities for livestock, vegetable and crop farming. Working together with the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development, the hon Skwatsha - who is here - has been assigned to work with me to ensure that the Agri-Parks programme is fully established to be able to access markets for individual households and farmers in the rural community so that, whatever they produce, there will be a market available and accessible to them. The agri-parks concept is one of the vehicles that can be used to expedite the implementation of the agrarian revolution programme. We also are encouraged by initiatives by others such as Motsepe Foundation which has partnered with traditional leaders and is already using the one million hectares of land to produce supply and all the goods will go to the European markets. On land issue, the Minister indicated on the holding of the Land Summit within this financial year 2019-20 – hon Hlengiwe Mkhaliphi, I hope you and your party will be available because in the previous summit you did not come [Interjections.] Where we will engage, we will engage with the traditional leaders on the land ownership, the rights of women and also Spluma inheritance permit to occupy the very issues that you have raised. Come and join, and also contribute to the sector. Don’t stand here and throw tantrums at them. Engage them. There are very learned amongst them whom you can really engage and ensure that they are able to contribute. The recognition of the Khoisan communities is a critical and important work that this Parliament has already worked on. The Traditional and Khoisan Leadership Bill has been passed by Parliament and now with the President to sign into law. This will ensure that the Khoisan communities and their language are recognised. We are looking forward to the President signing the Bill into law to finally give one of the indigenous communities their full rights of existence equal to those of all other indigenous communities. Another challenge being experienced in South Africa is the abuse of the communities by the religious sector. The CRL Commission commenced the investigations in relation to the abuse of religion and the report was tabled before the Portfolio Committee on Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs. The report will be resuscitated in the sixth administration. Another issue which remains a challenge, hon members, is the customary initiation whereby every year, we count bodies of young boys who have died and whose lives we should have protected. It is becoming complex as new activities are now associated with it, like drunkenness, drug abuse, assault, torture, lack of adult supervision and the flourishing of illegal schools in the villages, cities, towns, urban areas and commercialisation thereof. In response, the department initiated the Customary Initiation Bill and the aspects of the Bill, amongst others, will be to curb the illegal schools with minimum and maximum sentences for anyone who establishes them. Regrettably, during the winter season, 26 initiates died: 17 in the Eastern Cape; three in Limpopo; two in Mpumalanga; two in North West; and two in Gauteng. The law will be a deterrent but we call on the parents and the communities to also play a role. Lastly, the traditional leaders have a role to play and all of us must then support and ensure that we work together with them. Thank you very much. [Applause.] Ms M M TLOU: Hon Chairperson, hon Minister, Dr Nkosazana Dalmini- Zuma, hon Deputy Ministers, Parks Tau and Obed Bapela, hon Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee Faith Muthambi, hon MECs from provinces, treasures guests in the gallery. Sepedi: Re dumediša magoši kamoka, re re thobela. English: It is an honour for me to stand before you today and take part in this important debate. ANC supports budget vote 4. In the state of the nation address on 7 February 2019, President Cyril Ramaphosa invited each one of us to participate in the building of our country with the clarion call Thuma Mina, Sent Me. The success of the nation formation and social cohesion depends on changing material condition for all South Africans for the better. The reason the Constitution gives equal rights to all South Africans is to place responsibilities on us to play our part in fostering social cohesion and nation building which are necessary requirements if we are to realise vision 2030 of the national development plan. The municipal Demarcation board was established in terms of the section 3 of the Demarcation Act and its functions are to determine municipal boundaries and render advisory services in matters provided in the Demarcation Act. Other functions of the board are provided in the Local Government Structures Act, Act 17 of 1998 which is to delaminate municipal wards and conduct the capacity assessment of district and local municipalities to enable the MECs of local government to allocate powers and functions. The municipal Demarcation Board was one out of the mission to collapse race, class and other prejudicial consideration that inform the configuration of the former apartheid municipalities. The old municipalities replicated apartheid inequalities in the distribution of resources and provision of services in favour of advantaged communities. Demarcation is a complex process especially now that there are various interests such as political, socially and otherwise. It is because these demarcation decisions are contested and litigated. We have seen the litigations associated with the demarcation process cost the municipality Demarcation Board approximately R7 million in legal fees. Complicating this viability base line is the issue of the funding of for municipal powers and functions. This is often struggle at two tier government’s level. Some of the hard lessons learned during municipal measures have prompted the municipal Demarcation Board to place a hold on any two demarcations and the society desired to be seen in the new South Africa. While it is found that farm and communities are splits when it comes to their boundaries, then only in this case can adjustments be made. It is an absolute priority to focus on the delivery of services of infrastructure and on building economics. There were several demarcation protests in areas such as Matatiele including Vuwani which were characterised by violence and damage to property. ANC says no to damage to property, precisely because damage to property is negatively affecting our economy. We need early detection of community discontent and timeous responses to reduce instances where community frustration bursts out into public protest, burning properties and barricade streets. We should know that the intelligent gathering method must be greatly enhanced to detect any negativity which consistently comes to the fore. This is an imperative. President’s call of Thuma Mina, Sent Me is a reminder that whatever we do as public representative is different level of government. We remain the servants of people. ANC government is serving the responsibility to take forward the struggle for the improvement of the lives of our people. We have to carry the baton as successors of the many South African people who led the struggle for freedom, justice, equality and democracy and vow never to recess until poverty, inequality and unemployment has been defeated and lives of our people change for the better. We cannot only reclaim and restore the legacy and heritage of Mandela but, we can celebrate it by ... [Interjections] Mrs G OPPERMAN: Hon Chairperson, hon Ministers, Deputy Ministers, hon members, after almost a decade in local government, here is a councillor’s perspective on why municipalities are regressing and deteriorating. The quality of work done at national level does not matter, if the people cannot feel, see and experience it at local level. Afrikaans: Op die grond is waar dit saak maak en die mense se geduld is op. English: Yet, again, Salga’s strategy is to deploy technical experts in weak municipalities, closer monitoring and tighter oversight. We have already been there; done that and got the t-shirt with the Seyenza Manje Turnaround Strategy, Back to Basics and Operation Clean Audit. It is time for a change and an aggressive new approach, if we want to solve regression in municipalities, and professionalise local government. A culture of accountability must be fostered within local government. President Ramaphosa said, and I quote: ”There must be accountability in all parts of the state where systems fail.” When only 18 out of 257 municipalities got clean audits, the system clearly failed. So, will those who disregarded and failed to the implement the AG’s recommendations and suggestions be held legally accountable for financial misconduct? Surely, there must be consequences for this 10% decrease in unqualified audit opinions. It is like a “mamma crab” telling her kids to walk straight. For the department itself regressed from a qualified to a disclaimed audit opinion. The government’s Performance Index Report for 2019 found that out of the top 20 best performing municipalities, 12 are run by the DA and four by the DA in coalision with other parties. [Applause.] The bottom 20 nonperformers are mostly ANC-led. The latest Municipal Financial Stability Index found that the only province whose governance practices are considered sound is the DA- led Western Cape. The rest are in serious financial trouble and distress. The current financial census of municipalities shows that debt owe to municipalities amounts to R72,4 billion. Afrikaans: Klein munisipaliteite sit met miljoene in oninbare skuld en gaan swaar gebuk onder hierdie las. English: Almost 50% of municipalities don’t have an approved policy on water and sanitation maintenance, have no road maintenance plans, ... Afrikaans: ... en meer as 30% van munisipaliteite het waterverliese hoër as 30%, selfs in die droogtegeteisterde areas. Kom ons begin daar. Sesotho: Mme Direko nako ke a hao. English: Playtime is over. [Applause.] [Time expired.] Ms D R DIREKO: House Chairperson, hon Minister and Deputy Ministers present here, hon members of the House, the chairperson of the committee, our distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, protocol observed, I feel very honoured today for being afforded the opportunity to address our nation on this important Budget Vote. I rise on behalf of the ANC to support this Budget Vote. No political democracy can survive and flourish if the majority of the people remain in poverty. We fought for land and we fought for a tangible prospect of a better life. Attacking poverty and deprivation therefore is a priority of the ANC democratic government. This Budget Vote’s tabling coincides with July month, in which July 18 was dedicated by the United Nations back in 2009 to be Nelson Mandela Day. On this day, the souls of humanity are challenged to make the world a better place. During the debate of the state of the nation address, Sona, one member of the opposition sought to paint a very bleak future of our youth by citing one Thandi as a poster girl of poverty and despair. Perhaps, I should state categorically that finding fault requires no effort at all, be it in another person, an organisation, or government. The question however is whether, in doing so, we choose to be a bee or a fly. A bee will always fly a long distance over cream and filth in search of nectar to feed, while a fly will always fly over a field full of nectar to search for a carcass in filth. It is a state of mind. [Interjections.] This tells ... Unfortunately, not all of us are capacitated to be howlers. [Interjections.] So, we only speak instead of howling. This tells me that members of the opposition still know too little about inequality. Our aim should be to contribute to more informed democratic discussion about inequality. Local government is a ... [Inaudible.] ... of our Constitution and well supported by systems and numerous institutions from Cogta, well up to National Treasury. At this point in time, it is thus correct to recall what our legendary would have said to us when everyone else seems to be losing their heads, and I quote: Sometimes it falls upon a generation to be great. You can be a great generation. Let your greatness blossom. As a freely elected representation of the people in this august House, it falls on us to inspire hope and confidence and energise our citizens, youth in particular, by repeatedly stating the objective of the NDP and the place of local government in it. In this consortium with other spheres of government, our local government system can and must strive to structure and manage its administration, budgeting and planning process, to give priority to the basic services to community and to promote the socioeconomic development of our communities. [Interjections.] Participating in national and provincial government programmes, without a doubt, ours is to ensure that we build an ethical and capable developmental state and we should ensure that it become a reality. Sesotho: Ba haeso, tokoloho ha se papadi, hona le mosebetsi o mongata o hlokang hore o etsuwe. Mme re le ANC re a tshepisa hore tsena tsohle re tla di phethisa. English: Then you ask, why, 25 years on, we still struggle to reach and change the lives of all our people. The ANC government, with its honest and humble self-introspection considered, as was pointed out by the President in his 20 June 2019 Sona, knows that policy implementation is taking place during harsh global and domestic economic conditions, which continue to limit our capacity to accomplish our strategic goals at the scale and pace we desire. We are therefore calling for greater functional management of our limited resources. Over the medium term, the department intends to focus on facilitating access to sustainable basic services, good municipal infrastructure, alleviating poverty and providing disaster relief and the enhancement of proactive disaster planning. Breakouts in enquiries and commissions continue to restore the confidence of our people. Amongst those central institutions of government that the President has established, including the clean audit task team in the municipality continue to dismantle the old architecture of the divisive, corrupt patronage network that has been plundering municipal finances at liberty. We see such trends happening currently. Yes, the ANC is not ... Mr W F FABER: Chairperson, I would just like to know if the hon member ... The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Ms M G BOROTO): Order, hon members! Order! A member in the House has the right to stand on a point of order. Mr W F FABER: Chairperson, I would just like to know if the hon member will take an easy question. Ms D R DIREKO: No. The ANC is not oblivious to the VBS saga and other municipal infrastructure budget mismanagement and abuse. We are striving to ensure that our people receive good quality service delivery. We are also striving to enhance our revenue collection, accountability and good governance. Good governance means that there will be accountability and services will be given to our people, even the issue of unfunded budget will be addressed by good governance. The mistakes of the past in local government, which had an impact on service delivery must not and will not occur again. Service excellence will be at the centre of local government and as the people represented in the House, we will ensure that it happens. We have also noticed a widespread fear in certain sections of our population that our democratic space would one day buckle under the weight of corruption and maladministration. That is fast becoming a distant memory, as we get down to ensure services to the people and deal decisively with all these ... [Inaudible.] ... of socioeconomic development. We will also ensure that we implement the second phase of the Back to Basics programme of which some of the programmes are key priorities of Cogta for the 2011-20 financial year. This includes that we put the people first, and provide quality services, good governance and sound financial management. This and other interventions are part the Thuma Mina mission and one which we are determined to fulfil. South Africans expect improved service delivery and rightly so. While we make no excuses for avoidable failures and mediocrity, we call on all our communities and community organisations to ensure that the letter and the spirit of the object of local government and intended legislation become a norm in the spirit of an accountable, responsive and open local government system. We also wish to harshly condemn the senseless destruction of public infrastructure during the protest marches. Sesotho: Batho ba heso, marumo fatshe. Re utlwile dillo tsa lona mme re tla di arabela re le mokgatlo wa ANC. English: Local government carries a pressure both in the budget and the infrastructure, as more and more people move to urban areas in search of a better life and job opportunities. This movement has exposed the much-needed strengthening of the integrated co-operative government system across all spheres of government. This poses a need for an activist people’s Parliament that will hold the national executive to account, in seemingly desperate, but collaborating efforts to attain and maintain a better life for all South Africans. The ANC, under the able leadership of President Ramaphosa, will leave no stone unturned to ensure that the contorted and desponded face of the poster of the poverty girl by the name of Thandi, as indicated by a member of the opposition, is transformed into that of a ... [Inaudible.] ... yearning for peace, a safe and a clean environment, decent job and prosperity and a South Africa that occupies her rightful place in the community. As I conclude, we thank Thandi and many like her for inspiring hope to dream of a better future, and affirm the ANC as the hope of the people. We commit that we will never fail her. As young people, we are in this Parliament to represent and fulfil her hopes and aspiration. We will speak the truth to the power, just like our former President Nelson Mandela did by taking action. We hope that this Budget Vote will assist the department in achieving and setting the predetermined targets. The ANC supports this Budget Vote. Thank you. [Applause.] The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Ms M G Boroto): Hon members, there are cloaks here, I can still see with my eyes even though I am wearing these spectacles. Therefore, don’t tell me about time. If you think that time has passed for a particular speaker, come and check the cloaks in order to verify. Ms E N NTLANGWINI: Chair, I just want to check something. The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Ms M G Boroto): Yes. Ms E N NTLANGWINI: Is that the sweepers of the ANC this year? The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Ms M G Boroto): Hon member, take your seat. Ms E N NTLANGWINI: Your sweepers are weak. The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Ms M G Boroto): Take your seat. We now call on the Minister, hon Dlamini-Zuma to close the debate. The MINISTER OF COOPERATIVE GOVERNANCE AND TRADITIONAL AFFAIRS (Dr N C Dlamini-Zuma): I want to thank all of you who participated on the debate and all of you who are here. In terms of the issues that have been raised, for those issues we have to work with the other departments. For instance, we agree that the Fourth Industrial Revolution has been working with the Department of Communication and with Municipal Infrastructure Support Agent, MISA, also. I also agree with what some of the parties are saying, I think it was the EFF that said that we must look at the funding model. I want to confirm that we are indeed looking at the funding model, so we agree with you. But if you don’t support the budget, we won’t be able to look at the funding model. Ms M C DIKGALE: Chairperson, I am standing on a point of order. I am very sorry to disturb the Minister, but we have been sitting here watching the members that side, hon Mkhaliphi and hon Khawula who have been pointing on our members with their fingers and now Mma Khawula has been doing it again on our Minister, we cannot allow that. The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Ms M G Boroto): Thank you hon member. Hon Mkhaliphi, let me first rule before you talk. Ms H O MKHALIPHI: Oh okay, because I want to address that member. The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Ms M G Boroto): Can you please take your seat. Take your seat, hon Mkhaliphi. Hon Mkhaliphi, we know that gestures are not allowed. Please refrain from doing that. IsiZulu: Nk H O MKHALIPHI: Asingayoni lento ... English: ... The Minister is having only five minutes to respond. So, she is not a Whip of EFF. The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Ms M G Boroto): Hon member, don’t respond to her please. Ms H O MKHALIPHI: She is not a Whip of EFF. If she has a problem with the conduct of the EFF, she must come to me. The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Ms M G Boroto): Hon member, please take your seat, that is not a point of order. I told you about the gestures that are not allowed. That’s my ruling. Continue Minister. The MINISTER OF COOPERATIVE GOVERNANCE AND TRADITIONAL AFFAIRS (Dr N C Dlamini-Zuma): One of the members talked about Emfuleni Municipality that it should be under administration, it is. The IFP says that ... IsiZulu: ... zigcina icala nje, sikhuluma ukugcina icala nje ngokuthi siyasebenzisana namakhosi. Hhayi, akunjalo. Asigcini icala ngoba asiphoqiwe ngumuntu. Umthethosisekelo uyasho ukuthi kufanele kwenziwe kanjani nathi sikwenza ngoba sithanda hhayi ngoba sigcina icala. Ngakhoke sizosebenza nawo, ungakhathazeki. English: I agree with the FF Plus that we must appoint the best people. Actually, I said exactly that. So, they were just echoing what I said. Therefore, we are in agreement. In the same way, we agree that we have few municipalities with clean audit, but amongst them are ANC municipalities as well. So, I have invited all of you that we must work together. Therefore, if you accept that call, we are going to work with you. About the issue of the equitable share, I think it is the same as the funding model and we agree that it should change. Therefore, we must look at the equitable share that will be sent to the municipalities. Concerning the maintenance of infrastructure, MISA is there for that reason. Therefore, I am asking that you support us in strengthening MISA because MISA will assist in the maintenance of infrastructure and also in giving capacity to the municipalities to be able to maintain infrastructure. Of course, we are also in agreement with what hon members have been saying about ... IsiZulu: ... amanzi, izindawo eziningi azinawo amanzi futhi kufanele sisebenzisane ekubanikezeni abantu amanzi ngoba amanzi ayimpilo. Uma ungenawo amanzi ngeke uphile. Awukwazi nje. Ugesi mhlawumbe ungazama ukuyotheza kodwa amanzi awukwazi. Ngakhoke siyavumelana nawe ... kade sikhuluma noSekela Mongameli uMahlobo la ukuthi kufanele sisebenzisane njengoba esephethe ezamanzi ukuthi amanzi aye kubantu ngoba uma ubheka phela umnyango wethu akuwona kuphela, akuwona futhi wodwa, kumele sisebenzisane nemnyango eminingi ukwenza lezi zinto. Kufanele-ke sisebenze sonke sibanike abantu amanzi kodwa neMISA izolekelelela la kungalekeleleka khona ukuthi abantu basheshe bawathole amanzi ezahlukene. Okokugcina-ke, impela kuzofanela ukuthi sisizane sonke. Amaqembu ezombusazwe wonke aneqhaza alibambayo ngendlela ezihlukene kuHulumeni wezindawo. Siyawacela ngempela ukuthi asibambane sisebenzisane silungise oHulumeni bezindawo. Ngiyabonga. [Ihlombe.] The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Ms M G Boroto): Members, you are reminded of a combined debate on Telecommunications and Postal Services and Communication Budget that will take place in the National Assembly at 16:30 and the debate on Monitoring and Evaluation will take place in this Old Assembly Chamber at 16:30. The mini-plenary rose at 16:30