Thank you. Chairperson, comrades and friends, in response to the first question, which is No 72, we want, firstly, to point out that we think that it is a very good question, because it links issues of capacity and resource constraints with strategies to grow the economy, and that is a holistic response to dealing with corruption.
The department has, in fact, established the Anti-Corruption Inspectorate, whose mandate is basically to monitor trends of corruption in municipalities and to assist municipalities to deal with corruption cases, but also to be preventative and encourage amongst councillors and officials a sense of ethical conduct. The inspectorate has only recently been formed. It has a lot of potential, obviously, but it is too early to say exactly how effective it is.
In respect of the first subsection, we have personnel there - a leader and some staff - and together they do have the skills necessary for investigation and training. However, obviously over time we will empower and capacitate them further. With regard to the second subsection, the budget for the inspectorate for now - the current purpose - is sufficient. Regarding the third subsection, the department is committed to local economic development. We think job creation is crucial if we are to reduce corruption. We are committed to co-operatives and we have also launched Business Adopt-a-Municipality, where we encourage the private sector to partner with specific municipalities, as it is in both their interest and the interest of municipalities to work together. Thank you indeed.
I am satisfied.
Chairperson, I appreciate the answer given by the Minister. However, can he provide details around whether or not we are winning the fight against corruption?
Thank you. Firstly, as you may well know, in the North West the Minister for Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs and the President have initiated a Special Investigating Unit, SIU, investigation into all of those municipalities. There have been several arrests and there are cases pending.
Elsewhere, too, through various forms of responding to corruption at municipal level cases have been initiated. Only yesterday you will have seen in the media the case against the Deputy Mayor of Msunduzi, Pietermaritzburg.
Clearly the matter of municipal corruption should not be exaggerated. It is not as if municipal councillors and officials are all corrupt. It is not as if municipal corruption is greater than corruption at the national and provincial levels. I think that to deal with corruption at the municipal level one has to tackle corruption in society as a whole, not least in the private sector.
As you well know, recently, in the last six months, government set up an anticorruption unit led by Minister Baloyi. This will complement the work of the SIU, the SA Revenue Service, the Financial Intelligence Centre, the Hawks, the SAPS, etc.
Corruption is not something that can be resolved overnight, and it cannot be separated from the challenges of dealing with poverty, inequality and joblessness. So, we need a holistic strategy, and not least in our attempt to reduce corruption at municipal and every level is the role of this august House and its MPs in their parliamentary work and also in their constituency work. Thank you.
Chairperson, I accept and agree with the answer given here.
However, as the committee on co-operative governance and traditional affairs we have been going through section 139. We have given the department a lot of recommendations, both at provincial and national level. That is why we are asking for details now, so that they can beef up our understanding of whether or not work has been done. In most municipalities it is not happening. We are not asking about what is happening at the national and provincial level. We are saying that that is the situation in regard to local government. I think that the Deputy Minister is not providing that particular answer. I would therefore like to get some answers in so far as that is concerned. That is because the North West, for example, was in a mess before we went to the local government elections. The beautiful province called ... [Time expired.]
Mr Matila, your time for asking your follow-up question is over.
Thank you. I think they know what I am talking about.
Let me clarify this. You say you have made recommendations to the department; I am just not too sure of whether or not the Deputy Mister has received those recommendations. Maybe what we should ask is whether or not they have seen those recommendations and whether or not they are working on them. Can we get an answer to that? I am just putting that question because he might not have seen the recommendations. I am not saying that he must not answer the question. I just thought that maybe that would be the correct way to put it.
Thank you, Chairperson. Firstly, by specifics I understand precise events and processes. I referred to the 25 municipalities in my answer to your question. With regard to the North West, I talked about the SIU investigation initiated by the Minister for Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs. I also referred you to yesterday's media reports on the previous day's appearance before the court of the Umsunduzi Deputy Mayor and a team of officials for transgressions and municipal corruption. I have also referred you to several other cases. So, regarding specifics, I am not sure how much more specific you want it to be. However, we can actually, if need be, give you a written answer on every specific case. But, may I point out that, in fact, it is very easy for the department to respond before the portfolio committee, and we commit ourselves to doing so. There are officials here in the gallery, and they will note that. We commit ourselves to appearing before the committee on co-operative governance and traditional affairs.
I am unaware of any specific cases that have been brought to my attention by the committee in the recent past, but presumably it is in the Minister's office and I will confer with the director-general and the acting Minister. We suggest that the Select Committee on Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs ask us as soon as possible to appear before it, and we will answer regarding what we have done in respect of proposals that have been made to us on how to deal with corruption. We are very interested in working with the portfolio committee and the NCOP.
Thank you, Chairperson. Before I ask my question, of course, on this very subject let me say that every one of our visits ends up with a report drafted by this House, which should find its way to the Minister's office. That is just by the way.
The Minister says that strategies to grow the economy at the local level are in place. Can I just ask whether the Minister and his department actually interrogate the implementation of these strategies to find out if the money available - by means of intergovernmental transfers or whatever the case might be - is actually spent on growing the economy at the local level? I am asking this because our information, our own research, in my province has proved that a lot of the money spent - I am not talking about corruption, but I am talking about the actually money spent - finds its way into the hands of contractors and suppliers from outside the province, who then bring their own people into the province to do the work. In this way the structure is built or the service is rendered, yes, but the local economy is not stimulated and job creation does not take place at the local level, where the local population are, and where it should be taking place.
The responsibility to monitor local economic development and other economic development and job creation strategies resides both with Parliament and the executive, but also with civil society. For our part, obviously, we work with the provincial MECs and we have raised these issues in Minmec and other structures where we meet with the provincial MECs.
We are aware that in our State of Local Government report, which you well know is possibly the most extensive investigation of what is happening in municipalities that we have ever done since 1994, we arrived at the conclusion that, yes, there is a lot of money that has been mismanaged and that the job creation that has been promised has not happened. We have been quite open and transparent that, given the resource capacity and other constraints at municipal level, local economic development is actually not easy to give effect to; there are no easy answers in this regard.
But what we have seen in the more recent past, especially with the New Growth Path and the greatest stress on job creation in the President's state of the nation address, is that municipalities are taking this more seriously. It is in their self-interest, moreover, because the more jobs that are created, the better their constituents or citizens are able to pay for services.
In one very important respect I think we have been doing especially well by any measure, including that of the civil society actors who monitor us, and that is in the Community Work Programme. We exceeded our targets, as you well know; we reported to you on this in the budget speeches for last year. In fact, regarding the aim, we got 80 000 jobs created across a wide range of municipalities in this country and we are now seeking to escalate this. The National Treasury and we are looking into more funding for that. So, the Community Work Programme has been quite a remarkable success.
Thank you very much, Chairperson. Deputy Minister, I am from the North West. I would like to know how long the investigation by the SIU will take, because over the past two years there has been only one arrest in Madibeng. Has the department investigated why most of the deployees, who were administrators and who were deployed by the department itself, are being fired by the same municipalities? Were there interventions? Thank you.
We raised with the SIU at the very outset the need to speed up the investigations. Unfortunately, as members must know, the SIU is challenged resourcewise, moneywise and in other ways. To investigate all 25 municipalities in the province is no easy task. We have done what we can to put pressure on them, but obviously as politicians there are limits to how much we can interfere in the corruption investigation processes which belong basically to these investigating agencies. It is not just the SIU that is investigating those municipalities in your province, but, also in different ways, the Hawks, the SAPS and presumably also, though I cannot prove this and I do not have the evidence before me - that is why I said "presumably also" - Sars and the Financial Intelligence Centre, etc.
However you are right, there are not enough conclusions of investigations. The process needs to be speeded up. I think we should be held to account for what we can do, and all we can do is to put pressure on the SIU. But they keep telling us that, besides the North West, they have the rest of the country to contend with, and, given the scale of the task that they have to attend to, they unfortunately cannot move faster. This is a matter that we need to address with the Department of Justice and the Ministry of Justice; their securing from National Treasury more funding and resources to ensure that the SIU is able to act faster. We are very clear, as Co- operative Governance and Traditional Affairs, that the process needs to be accelerated.
In respect of people being deployed and the like, as the Department of Co- operative Governance and Traditional Affairs we are in fact going to Madibeng and other municipalities from 15 October. We are engaging with the MEC and the Premier in this regard, and you know that the situation there is extremely challenging. The political terrain is extremely complex and it is not as if we can find easy technical or governmental answers to what are fundamentally political problems, primarily of course within the majority party.
Mr Matila, four supplementary questions have been asked, and that is the end of supplementary questions.
Impact of Municipal Infrastructure Grant on certain Northern Cape municipalities
74. Mr J J Gunda (ID) asked the Minister for Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs:
(a) What impact has the Municipal Infrastructure Grant had on the financial and developmental status of the (i) Mier, (ii) !Kheis and (iii) !Khai-Garib municipalities in the Northern Cape and (b) what plans are in place to assist to further (i) develop and (ii) improve service delivery in these municipalities?