Deputy Chair and hon members, the President has appointed an interministerial committee on service delivery at district level, primarily to accelerate service delivery and support to our municipalities that are struggling for various reasons including those that are under administration. This area of work is
focussed on unlocking bottlenecks as well as to deal with imagined governance challenges that undermine delivery of quality services.
Among the focus areas of this interministerial committee will direct its work on the following issues: addressing community and business forums; address disruptions that are stopping existing projects that are currently ongoing in these different municipalities; addressing numerous compliance issues that have created serious challenges in those municipalities in the supply chain management and the procurement processes; addressing compliance issues surrounding planning and addressing security problems faced in the provision of electricity, water and other services. These interventions including the establishment of the interministerial committee, IMC, are as the result of our government's recognition that there are various challenges faced by our municipalities, which over time has impacted on the quality of service delivery and the collapse of services. This has inadvertently led to sporadic protests which at times have turned violent leading to the destruction of public and private property.
Some of the interventions that we are implementing focus on improving of governance matters in these municipalities through the example of recruitment and selection of competent managers in
critical senior positions and enforcement of compliance with the Municipal Systems Act and its related regulations; to encourage professionalism of corporate systems and processes like performance management system and effective implementation of integrated service delivery models and resolving political infighting that affect administration and service delivery. Furthermore, there is effective support by Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Cogta, and National Treasury with the implementation of posts audits action plans to reverse the negative audit outcomes and the compulsory utilisation of database on employees that were dismissed for misconduct, fraud and corruption.
The above mentioned measures will in no doubt strengthen the functioning of our municipalities especially those that are under administration so that they meet the expectations of our people as far as service delivery is concerned. Therefore, we are pleased that increasing numbers of municipalities are co-operating with information on their specific challenges. Beyond the municipalities that are under administration, Cabinet has also resolved that the IMC must focus on monitoring and where needed support and intervene across all the 44 districts in our eight metropolitan municipalities. The intention is an all of government process of
planning, sequencing of projects and monitoring the service delivery process.
As of now, we have undertaken to immediately respond to all areas where there are service delivery challenges to ensure that all infrastructure development plans and operations are aligned across all spheres of government. We do this with an intention to intensify the implementation of pipeline infrastructure projects as well as to ensure policy coherence and consistency. In this fashion, we would be able to improve the alignment of infrastructure development plans and operations; ensure policy coherence and unlocking bottlenecks to fast-track service delivery. As we have mentioned, we will react to early warnings so as to pre-empt service delivery challenges, we will promote economic development and investment through the revitalisation of townships and rural economies and ensure that service delivery challenges are addressed timeously. Thank you very much.