Deputy Speaker, yes, we do have the mechanisms and instruments regarding what has been raised in terms of the municipal infrastructure grant, the MIG.
The other question is about how we measure the impact. There are two things that we look at. One, we go to the people on the ground and check whether - as intended beneficiaries - they see a difference, and whether the quality of their lives has been improving. That's the first thing that we do. The second thing is to look at whether the backlogs that are there, in terms of infrastructure development, are being dealt with and addressed. Those are the two things that we look at.
The second question raises an issue around how much money was not spent on the MIG. As of June 2010, R926 million was not spent. Now, the question that is being raised is: What interventions are we undertaking as a department? The first intervention is to give support to municipalities. The second intervention is to ensure that we deploy experts to assist where there is a shortage of skills, particularly of engineers. However, what we find a challenge is the lack of forward planning. People don't plan projects on time so that when the money comes - the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework is for three years - the projects aren't ready. People don't do that. Therefore we are dealing with that issue; we are addressing it.
However, we believe that we are supposed to look at the long-term solutions. Something we are coming up with is a special purpose vehicle: a centralised structure at the national level that is going to ensure that whether you are in Messina or Johannesburg, you can get the same services at the basic level. We will be able to assist struggling municipalities that are not able to do that.
We believe that in the coming years the issue of the unspent MIG will be something of the past. But we are going beyond that. We are saying that the grants that are given to municipalities in South Africa are too many, unco- ordinated and disorganised. Therefore we will be co-ordinating the grants in the way they are supposed to be done to ensure that there is a single window where things will be undertaken. That is what we are doing as a way of addressing this issue. Thank you very much, Deputy Speaker.
Thank you, Deputy Speaker. Hon Minister, the ANC is asking these questions because we are concerned not only about the money that is being spent but also about the quality of the spend. It is important that MIG funds are spent on the actual infrastructure on the ground. Therefore, Minister, what is going to happen to the unspent MIG funds? Are they going to be channelled to the poorest municipalities?
Deputy Speaker, the first thing we agreed not to change relates to when a municipality has not spent, and you take that money and give it to another municipality. It means the people of that area will remain perpetually poor and underdeveloped. Our view is that we must deal with the problem, roll up our sleeves and ensure that we remove the obstacles and blockages there. Therefore, in that respect, we do not want to shift funds. We want to ensure that the people who were intended to benefit do benefit.
Quality spend is what we are talking about when we talk about the impact. That is: Is it doing what it is supposed to be doing? We have found that in some areas people are using the money for operational costs, and we are dealing with those things. In some areas you find that the quality that is there is not satisfactory and we are intervening in those areas. In some areas you find that people are doing extremely well. In fact, in the majority of areas people are doing very well. Therefore all those areas and issues are being dealt with and addressed. Thank you very much, Deputy Speaker.
Deputy Speaker, would the Minister agree that when municipalities fail to spend any of their municipal infrastructure grants, it is the poor who suffer the most, and that the 10 ANC-run municipalities which failed to spend even 1% of their grant have failed the poor?
Well, I don't want to politicise development because there are DA-led municipalities that are performing very poorly ... [Interjections.] ... extremely poorly. Therefore I want us to talk about development. Anybody who is not spending what has been given is not assisting the poor, irrespective of political parties. I am saying: Let's agree that development must not be politicised. Let us focus on what has to be done. Thank you very much, Deputy Speaker. [Applause.]
Hon Minister, the special purpose vehicle that you referred to seems not to have a budget and the SA Local Government Association, Salga, believes that this is actually encroaching on the role of the district councils. How are you going to proceed with this body if you have opposition from Salga and do not have the budget for it to implement its task?
Deputy Speaker, on 2 December 2009 Cabinet approved the Local Government Turnaround Strategy which includes, amongst other things, the special purpose vehicle. Salga has been part of that. I do not understand why people suffer when there is money that, at times, is not spent, and sometimes when people build infrastructure, you find that they build "Bermudas". A Bermuda is trousers that do not reach where it is supposed to. [Laughter.]
When government is trying to assist the poor by intervening and ensuring that infrastructure everywhere in South Africa is at the same level and Salga says that it is wrong - something which I don't believe they said - that is not helping the country. Government and Cabinet have taken a decision, and all of us must toe the line and implement it. Even Salga is going to implement what government has taken a decision on. Thank you very much. [Applause.]
Deputy Speaker, hon Minister, the reason - in most cases - that the MIG funds are not used is the lack of capacity. As a result, many of the municipalities then engage consultants. A lot of money that should go towards making an impact on the project then ends up in the pockets of these consultants. What is the department doing to capacitate the municipalities so that they can spend better? Thank you.
Madam Deputy Speaker, I hope that the same message is going to be conveyed to the IFP-led municipalities because when the national or provincial government comes, they resist. They say: "This is our territory and we can't allow the ANC to come here; we want to run these things on our own." We would be happy if the same issues that are raised at this level are taken to the ground so that your message sinks in with your members in municipalities.
However, having said that, the issue of building capacity is what we are focusing on. We have been involved in an audit of skills across South Africa so that we know where to intervene and where not to. We have taken a decision through the Local Government Turnaround Strategy that municipalities must have at least six positions: the municipal manager, the chief financial officer, the town planner, the town engineer, a person who deals with communication, and a person who deals with human resources. The intention is to ensure that we address these ills and shortage of skills in municipalities so that delivery can happen and there is an improvement in our people's lives. Thank you very much.
Position regarding inclusion of terms of turnaround strategy in municipal budgets 79. Mr S L Tsenoli (ANC) asked the Minister for Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs: [Standing over in terms of Rule 115]
Whether his department has assessed if municipal budgets included the terms of the turnaround strategy; if not, why not; if so, what are the relevant details? NO2513E
Madam Deputy Speaker, on the issue of the turnaround strategies being adopted by municipalities, I can assure you that many municipalities, if not all, have adopted the issues of turnaround strategies that are specific to their areas, integrated with the Integrated Development Plan, IDPs, because we said municipalities must have their own specific turnaround strategies as from the beginning of the year. Therefore, from our point of view, we believe that the budgets that were implemented from 1 July were based on the turnaround strategies.
However, the area that is still very weak, which we believe must be addressed in years to come, is the consciousness of our communities. They must know that they must ensure that municipalities are turned around and that the municipalities are their own entities. They must ensure that they have an interest in whatever happens at that level and they must make a contribution. That is what is happening in relation to that. We hope to deepen that consciousness as we go forward. Thank you.
Thank you, Deputy Speaker. Hon Minister, thank you very much for that response. How much co-operation is received from provincial departments who have a contribution to make to those specific municipal turnaround strategies, especially the provincial departments of public works who pay rentals to municipalities?
Madam Deputy Speaker, on the issue of provincial departments, I must say that the bag is varied and mixed. Mpumalanga, for example, has already signed the delivery agreement and performance agreement between the MEC and all municipalities in Mpumalanga - between the MEC, the mayors and also the municipal managers. That tells you what happens, but it is not the same in other provinces.
Therefore, provinces play a supporting role in these issues because they are supposed to be driven by them at that level. Our task at a national level is to give support to provinces and to municipalities.
In relation to co-operation of these departments, particularly the Department of Public Works, with the payment of municipalities, I must say that it is still a challenge. Municipalities are being owed by provincial governments and national government, particularly the departments that are involved.
What we are finalising, which I hope will be finalised before the end of this month, is to disaggregate the debt. We want to establish who owes who, so that we can ask provincial departments, provincial government, national departments, and national government to pay. You cannot afford to say you are supporting yourselves as government through municipalities and undermine yourself at the same time by not paying the bills that are supposed to be paid to municipalities. Therefore, the situation of payments is still a big challenge. Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Would you agree, Minister, that the turnaround strategy can only succeed if the necessary funding and skills are made available? Unfortunately, district municipalities in provinces have failed ailing municipalities in the past. Where is the Minister going to find the additional competence and skills to assist these ailing municipalities, and what steps are being taken to source these scarce skills?
Madam Deputy Speaker, we are very glad that you are raising that question about the skills. We are concluding the auditing of the shortage of skills in municipalities because the information and the data that were there were not too reliable. What is going to happen thereafter? We have engaged and we are engaging with the Department of the Public Service and Administration, the DPSA, to look at what they have done and where their engineers that they utilise are. Similarly, we are talking to engineering organisations and doing all that we think is important to be done.
We are looking at and engaging with the planning fraternity. We are also speaking to the Auditor-General. We were shocked and dismayed when we found that the Auditor-General had the capacity of over 900 finance people, who could be deployed in municipalities. These are people who are graduating and who are doing their final internships in the Auditor-General's office that we can use. I believe that in the short term, we have the skills. The issue is the deployment of skills and the utilisation of those skills going forward.
We are categorising municipalities because municipalities in South Africa are not on the same level, have not developed the same way, and their needs, conditions and objectives on the ground are not the same. Therefore, we must know which ones require extensive support and assistance, which ones require less support and so on. Having done that, we will then be able to say which ones we must deploy and what capacity is required. We believe that we are equal to the task. We will be able to do that and ensure that it is undertaken.
Provinces and districts might not have helped a lot or the help might have been varied and different, but we are doing these interventions at a national level as a short-term measure. We believe that provinces, in terms of the Constitution and the laws, are supposed to play the supportive role, the monitoring role and the intervention role when things are not going well. For now, we believe that we are going to address the issues that are being raised. Thank you.
Hon Minister, you are public record as stating that 95% of the 283 municipalities had developed municipal turnaround strategies. Furthermore, you indicated that these municipal turnaround strategies will ensure optimal co-operation among the different spheres of government. If that is so, has the provincial government, on the one hand, and the national government, on the other, closely interrogated these plans to ensure sound planning in the co-ordination of action at all levels of government, effectiveness of budgeting and legitimacy of procurement processes that are to be utilised? If not, why not; if so, what are the details?
Madam Deputy Speaker, I will forgive my colleague there for raising issues of procurement now, which are not supposed to be asked here, but you could hear that somebody said: Ask these questions. I will be able to respond to those issues. What is happening is that it is true that we have raised issues, as you put them across. With the development of these turnaround strategies, we deployed across the country our own officials, working with the officials of provinces, so that they can assist, in each and every municipality, with the development of these strategies. When they were developed, there was no need to double check whether they are speaking to our needs, because the three spheres of government, at a conceptual initial stage in the development, were part of the process. Therefore, when these matters were developed, we were happy about them.
However, the issue of procurement is a big challenge and a big issue because that is where corruption happens - at the procurement level. We have agreed with the National Treasury that we are working on amending the Local Government: Municipal Finance Management Act and also on ensuring that the procurement process of supply chain is addressed. At times, people take even the policies that are there, put them aside, take the law, put it aside and decide ngendlela yesintu ukuthi [in an African way] that we are now going to do this thing in this way. We want to ensure that all those practices are uprooted and dealt with. Thank you.
Thank you, Deputy Speaker. Hon Minister, we are happy that members of your department went to the municipalities to help them in drafting these turnaround strategies. However, we still want to know whether these strategies are credible. We ask these questions because municipalities did get help in drawing up their IDPs, but these were still found not to be credible. As a result, they were never implemented. Therefore, we would like to know whether there has been any assessment with regard to credibility. Thank you.
Madam Deputy Speaker, the colleague heard when I was responding to hon Ngonyama umphumela [with the results]. When we were developing these municipal turnaround strategies, they were done by the three spheres of government in each and every municipality. Therefore, we are satisfied with the credibility.
The issue that is still a concern is the involvement of the people and the ownership of these turnaround strategies by the people. If a municipality veers off, in terms of what is expected, people can intervene and say: Come back into line in terms of what we are doing. That is the only concern. But, in relation to credibility, we are happy. We hope that in the intervening years we will be able to ensure that the people are part of it. We deepen democracy in a real sense. Thank you.
Position regarding aims of Clean Audit Campaign and achievement thereof
89. Mr W P Doman (DA) asked the Minister for Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs: [Standing over in terms of Rule 115]
(a) What were the aims of the Clean Audit Campaign for its first year since its inception and (b) which of these aims have been achieved? NO2523E
Madam Deputy Speaker, I will mention things that we said we want to achieve. One of them is to ensure that provinces and municipalities receive a clean audit by 2014. As a provincial government, we are very happy to say that the Western Cape is our first achievement in ensuring that it is possible to receive a clean audit. Yes, your Western Cape has received a clean audit as a province.
However, there are still challenges in municipalities even in the Western Cape, and we are working on that. That is the first thing we are happy about. When we set the targets for clean audits we said that we wanted to launch the programme nationally and provincially in all provinces, which was successfully achieved.
At the same time, we wanted to create provincial co-ordinating committees that will continue to drive these processes, even when we are gone, so that they are owned by these provincial structures in which the Auditor-General, provincial treasuries, provincial co-operative governance and traditional affairs departments, the premiers' offices, the SA Local Government Association, Salga, and the Development Bank of Southern Africa are supposed to participate. The ambassadors of Operation Clean Audit, people who have achieved clean audits, must be able to share their own experiences in those structures so that we are able to ensure that best practices are emulated by other municipalities.
The other thing we want to achieve is to ensure that from now onwards we avoid the issue of municipalities which don't submit their financial statements to the Auditor-General three months after the financial year has ended. We believe that to a certain degree about 95% have been received from the municipalities. Thank you.
Thank you, Deputy Speaker. Minister, the three Cs are the problem with audits: cadre deployment, capacity and corruption. The human resources manager in Nelson Mandela Bay was dismissed after the controversial purchase of golf shirts at R560 apiece, but left with a golden handshake and later emerged as municipal manager at the Sundays River Valley Municipality. He was again dismissed after multiple charges of tender irregularities, but was later reinstated by the province. However, the dismissal was confirmed by the courts. Now the Eastern Cape has appointed him to lead Operation Clean Audit. [Interjections.] How can Operation Clean Audit succeed with people like this leading it, Minister?
Madam Deputy Speaker, the first thing is that we have taken a decision as a department that any person who is about to be charged cannot be allowed to resign. It means one must face the consequences of one's actions. Secondly, we have taken a decision that when there are allegations against one, one must not be paid a golden handshake. We have stopped that in many municipalities.
Therefore, what we are raising is that those two practices have been eliminated. The person who is leading Operation Clean Audit in the Eastern Cape will check the facts. We will be able to look at that and begin to deal with it.
However, on the matter of cadre deployment, that is done by all parties, including your party, hon Doman. I have the minutes of when people campaigned for your elections and you said you wanted to compensate them; you wanted to pay them by deploying them here in this municipality. Now, because they were campaigners - we are going to give you the information if you want it - we are saying it is not correct when you argue that cadre deployment is done by only one party.
I think we must agree that all of us, as parties - who are governing and who might have the potential to govern - don't accept the issue of cadre deployment. However, cadre deployment in a way is a concept and there is nothing wrong with it, as long as you deploy capable people and on merit.
We must discuss and agree upon governance principles, and they must be followed by everyone, irrespective of party, when one governs a particular institution of the state. Thank you. [Applause.]
Camagu, ndiyabulela Somlomo kakhulu ngeli thuba endilifumanayo. Le nto ibuzwa lilungu elibekekileyo, ubawo uDoman icace okwekati emhlophe ehlungwini. Uyibuza njani ibhasi ibhaliwe? (Translation of isiXhosa paragraph follows.)
[Nkosi Z M D MANDELA: Thank you, Deputy Speaker, for this opportunity. What the hon Doman is asking is crystal clear. How could you ask such an obvious question?]
This is an obvious question, a campaign which is intended to create clean governance and which the ANC fully supports. Deputy Speaker, through you to the hon Minister, my question is therefore: What other additional measures are in place to make the Clean Audit Campaign a success and sustainable? Camagu. [Thank you.]
Madam Deputy Speaker, the most important thing when one does anything is to allow the users, the operators, to own the campaign. That means that municipalities must be able to own it. The first thing we believe must done by the municipalities is to establish municipal public accounts committees so that politicians can be empowered and able to ensure that they ask the right questions of the administration in terms of accountability.
The second thing is to ensure that capable and competent people in the finance section are employed. Thirdly, the audit committees, which are structures of people coming from outside, must be established to be able to do their work in municipalities. The audits and risk units must be in place. From our point of view, we believe that those things will assist in ensuring that all municipalities deal with the issues.
The question we are faced with is: Can we establish municipal public accounts committees now, on the eve of the elections, or do we wait for the elections to take place next year and then establish these structures? It is a vexing question. We are still dealing with it, but we believe that we will be able to find the answer and be able to take a particular view on what has to be done. In that way we believe that these matters are going to be dealt with and that the additional managers I have been requested to employ will be in their positions. Thank you.
Thank you, Deputy Speaker. Hon Minister, the whole concept of a clean audit campaign was one which was wholly and heartily supported by everybody who listened to you. You have mentioned the question of municipal public accounts committees, MPACs. I know I can ask you how many of these have been established and you may say, "Put it in writing and I'll give you an answer." However, I also know, hon Minister, that you have a hands-on approach in your department and that you will be able to answer the question.
What do you think about the establishment of MPACs? And, maybe, hon Minister, we shouldn't wait. Local government elections may be in May or June, but circumstances could postpone them. I think we should expedite the establishment of municipal public accounts committees so that monitoring and evaluation can take place in these municipalities before the term of office expires. I would like your comment on that. Thank you.
Madam Deputy Speaker, I will be able to tell the officials and the Deputy Minister that the matter has been raised; we have been asked and there have been pleadings that we establish these municipal public accounts committees before the elections, and we will take your views forward. Thank you.
Deputy Speaker, I think a big problem is that a lot of municipalities have paid no regard to competence. They have a lot of power and appoint just who they want to. I want to ask the hon Minister: How far is his department in issuing regulations so that we at least have minimum requirements for financial positions so that we can get clean audits in the end?
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Hon Doman, you will recall that a party in a province - I don't want to mention names - when regulations were developed in 2006, employed a person who had only passed Standard 4 to be a municipal manager. This person was a taxi driver and had no experience in municipal issues. When the MEC challenged this, the party went to court and the regulations were found to be unlawful.
Now what we are doing to address that problem is to introduce the Local Government: Municipal Systems Amendment Bill in which we will be able to address the weaknesses that were raised by the court. This means if there are managers who employ unskilled people, the MEC can intervene. If the MEC doesn't intervene within 14 days, the Minister will intervene. The Bill was in Parliament with the portfolio committee, which took it to Nedlac, and Nedlac was supposed to give a report at the end of last month.
Therefore, we have done our part. We have introduced the Bill and we are ready to roll out the regulations once the law is passed to ensure that we address this very same question. Hon Doman, you can ask yourself as a parliamentarian. Thank you.
Position regarding formulation and implementation of national anticorruption strategy
234. Mr L Ramatlakane (Cope) asked the Minister for the Public Service and Administration:
Whether his department has (a) formulated a national anticorruption strategy and (b) begun to implement this strategy across the whole spectrum of government; if not, why not; if so, what are the relevant details? NO3698E
Hon Deputy Speaker, the answer to the first part of the question is that there is a Public Service Anticorruption Strategy that provides a mechanism for fighting corruption in the Public Service, which was approved by Cabinet in 2002. The strategy encourages an integrated and coherent approach in the fight against corruption with elements of prevention, detection and combating.
The strategy contains nine considerations, which are: review and consolidation of the legislative framework; increased institutional capacity; improved access to reporting wrongdoing and protection of whistle- blowers and witnesses; the prohibition of corrupt individuals and businesses; improved management policies and practices; managing professional ethics; partnerships with stakeholders; social analysis research and policy advocacy; and awareness training and education.
With regard to the implementation, the answer is yes. The process of implementation across the spectrum has actually commenced. I want to stress that this is actually so in all three key sectors that are party to the development of the strategy, which are the government, business and civil society. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much, Minister, for the reply. I want to know if out of that the strategy has been implemented. You will remember that the Public Service Commission report cited that over R600 million was appropriated by officials in various departments, including those that were in state employment.
With regard to the implementation, what is it that we can say tangibly on the recovery rate, with respect to the money we have found that has been siphoned off by officials? Can we say that we've recovered that money, or how many cases can we say we have already referred to the police? Are they now in the process of recovering this money in terms of the strategy?
How many officials from local government are beginning to report, in terms of the Treasury regulations, those who have been at least confirmed to have been involved in corruption or corrupt practices at a local level? What are the statistics that can be shown in those categories or areas in terms of real implementation and results? We all support the strategy. I thank you.
Thank you, Deputy Speaker. What you said is true, hon Ramatlakane; the Public Service Commission submitted a report which talks to quite a number of areas. It is clear that one thing we must do is take steps to deal with all those issues. If I were to come to the issue of statistics - I wish this question was based on that - I would have provided statistics.
However, the reality is that, in different departments, there are actions and cases that are being taken in terms of which public servants, who find themselves in violation of the code of conduct and who have committed acts of misconduct, are being dealt with across the three spheres and in all government departments. It is just that the question of statistics requires one to raise only those things. If the question was based on that, one would be in a position to deal decisively with that.
It is very clear, as we as government indicated, that whereas we note what we do in all sectors and all the departments, we are not complacent and we do not say it's enough to do that; hence we bring about ways of making sure that there is a co-ordinated effort in as far as the question of dealing with such acts of corruption is concerned. We have policies and strategies, but we have indicated that that is not enough. What is actually called for is action. Thank you very much.
Madam Deputy Speaker, the Minister, as expected, mentioned the various anticorruption strategies that have been announced over the years and anticorruption units that have been instituted. But what did the Public Service Commission find?
Firstly, they found that offenders do not have to pay the money back and that criminal charges are not laid. In other words, offenders get away with misdemeanours. Moreover, according to the Public Service Commission, over the past two financial years the cost of financial misconduct has risen by 78%. Minister, why don't you insist that criminal charges be laid against offenders and that they pay the stolen money back?
Hon Deputy Speaker, hon Dreyer is very clear, of course, in that today the Public Service Commission gave the report to the portfolio committee on the investigation it conducted and the findings it made and so on. We will actually subject that report to discussion and it is then that we will go into details because there are recommendations that are in the report. With regard to the point of taking action, that's exactly what we are insisting on. We are working closely with the Special Investigating Unit and law-enforcement agencies to make it a point that where violations and corrupt acts are actually committed that action must be taken.
We are not saying that we are waiting for that stage. At government level, that corruption is the highest level of a situation in which public servants find themselves on the other side of the disciplinary code, but it starts right from the question of ethics.
That is why we then say that we need to nip it in the bud, so we don't have to wait for that. We appreciate that the law-enforcement agencies are actually doing their best. However, we also say that at the public service level, in terms of implementation, we need to make sure that we use the strategy to deal with issues related to various forms of manifestations of corruption as they arise and also prevent the corruption. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Hon Minister, in line with the anticorruption outline that you have already given and the practical implementation of the anticorruption strategy campaigned by government and all other institutions, is there any practical implementation that you can outline to this House, with a specific indication of how you are dealing with Sector Education and Training Authorities, Setas, in areas that show wrongdoing? Thank you.
Hon Deputy Speaker, the question by the hon Moloi indicates specific actions that we are taking, with specific reference to Setas, if I heard the question clearly. What we do is clearly as instructed - as you would remember - in that that area is one of the areas where talk of corruption is rife and high.
We have instructed the board to deal with issues related to investigating the environment to find out what is going on and for action to be taken. As we speak now, there are disciplinary hearings going on, where we have even senior managers from that area being brought to book and having to account for the actions they have taken.
This is one of the practical ways of showing our zero tolerance of corruption, and it is not just rhetorical, but a commitment in that we are actually prepared to walk the talk. Thank you very much. [Applause.]
Position regarding challenges identified by demarcation process with regard to 2011 local government elections
80. Ms D G Nhlengethwa (ANC) asked the Minister for Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs: [Standing over in terms of Rule 115]
With regard to the 2011 local government elections, (a) what challenges have been identified by the demarcation process and (b) how are these challenges being dealt with by the relevant stakeholders?