Chairperson, it is quite unfortunate that during this month, Women's Month, the issue of Shanaaz Majiet has been raised. The Minister spoke about her. We talk about this issue today because it is Women's Month. Here is an interesting fact about her.
The Public Service Commission does interesting reports, as I mentioned earlier. One of those reports did a sample of national and provincial departments in terms of their performance in relation to the nine values.
The best performing departments were led by Shanaaz Majiet and Portia Molefe, who is from Public Enterprises. The best performing departments! [Applause.] But the next thing, amongst other things, she is shafted. [Interjections.] Because of that, you are supposed to be proponents of the rule of law. [Interjections.]
Order, order!
Those are allegations. What are you assuming - that she is guilty? You are being presumptuous. You must wait until you hear what happens there.
The point we are making is that you should stop being holier than thou. You act like a person with a hammer - everything is a nail. You absolutely do not see the valuable and good things that are happening in Johannesburg. In the centre of Jo'burg and outside the centre of Jo'burg, the place is upside down with construction and reconstruction, the rebuilding of infrastructure that was meant for a limited white population that must now take on a bigger, inclusive population. You don't talk about that. All you see is what you think is going wrong.
If you travel throughout the country you will see that there is construction, there are cranes, but you don't speak about them, because, hey, you are carrying a hammer, you are looking for nails, and this is not it. [Laughter.] [Applause.] So, whilst the Minister is correct that we must be objective, we must alert you to the fact that although we value your opinion, we value them as opinions. They are not the truth, okay. There is a distinction between the two. [Interjections.] So we must subject them to the reality that we deal with in our work.
It is important to note that we haven't sufficiently dealt with the impact of migration and urbanisation on our country. This is because some of the biggest challenges that municipalities are facing, especially the large ones, are the growing populations.
Unfortunately, owing to the system of financing and financial determination, the amount of money that goes to these municipalities from national and provincial coffers does not meet the growing requirements of these municipalities.
Yet people must receive services and they must consume those services, so this is a global phenomenon. It is caused by a crisis of poverty that, as I said earlier, is not caused by us but by a system that is unsustainable that we must deal with in the long term.
So, in a sense, those issues are not just municipal problems. They are problems of a global system that is inequitable, that we must address and that we must root out so that we deal with the effects on our poor communities in our country. And this crisis is not spoken about often enough. What it requires of us is not only resources but an understanding of the conditions that give rise to poor performance.
Surveys have been conducted that show that a lack of capacity is sharpest in the poorest areas in our country. The reason is because the people in those areas, who don't have any capacity to write home about, gravitate towards where they think they can earn more money, have better resources, and so on. And who gets left in those areas? So, some of these issues, as I have said, require, as the Minister has correctly said, "a national coming together" to identify these issues. [Laughter.] Absolutely necessary! It is correct.
So, there is no truth in suggestions that municipalities were ever left to fend for themselves. That is not a reflection when you study the intergovernmental fiscal flow. Instead, you see a rapidly growing financial injection into provinces and municipalities. It's recorded, unless you do not read or, if you read, you don't comprehend the stuff that has been made available by Treasury.
In fact, one of the biggest improvements in transparency is in the municipal local government review. That has more information that shows a systematic increase in resources that has been going on. We agree fully. It is completely inadequate. It should have been more than that, but that is because we are talking now not just about problem solving but paradigm shifting initiatives that must take place this term. [Time expired.] [Applause.] Debate concluded.