As I tried to indicate, you will find that in the bigger picture of things, the smaller towns and the rural municipalities per capita tend to get better allocations and that was an attempt to assist the situation.
When we discuss the issue of general allocation in the budget with the budget council which includes MECs of finance but also in the budget forums which is the Ministry, National Treasury, MECs, president of Salga, Financial and Fiscal Commission and somebody else, we try and follow the population movements in the country.
Unfortunately this brings about some distortions. For example, you can see a larger number of people moving from KwaZulu-Natal to Gauteng. But those who are moving and increasing the population of Gauteng might be the younger and the middle aged people - it doesn't mean the older people are going to leave the village in KwaZulu- Natal.
Therefore, in the allocation system you have to bear in mind that although the population is increasingly being urbanised with about 62% of South Africans now living in cities, towns and peri-urban areas, that tends to attract the flow of funding in the budget because it must follow people. That is where people live but it doesn't remove the granny who is left in uMhlabuyalingana and so on. So, you have to balance that out and that's why some of the rural communities per capita still receive significant amounts of funding.
I think as members of the NCOP we should also insist that each and every town and village where you are allocated has a development plan. For example, what is the development plan at Modimolle? Where is it? Where is the map that says "in five years time this is what our town should look like". That gives us a better idea about how we start allocating funding.
In some instances the plan must also integrate with, say for instance, the Transnet railway system. Why do I say that? You might have a very nice plan and we allocate funds to municipality only to find that people are already building shacks on top of the railway line, or they have taken away the fence and there are many accidents with trains knocking people down because the development plan does not sufficiently integrate all the required elements for development. Or just like outside Mankweng in Limpopo where people are building houses in a flood place. Come floods and all those nice houses are flooded and the government would be to blame.
So, I am saying that as members of the Council you need to demand a very clear sense and sometimes you might have to be very firm on your own people and not give them permission to build houses where there will be flooding. But we don't do that because we are nice and being nice will result in negative consequences later.
So, we need to have a comprehensive plan so that funds can follow the plan in a sustainable manner. Also, I hope none of you is involved in this as members of the Council - because of the poor demarcation of what constitutes an urban area and a rural area, most people move out of the Polokwane town because it is designated as a city and therefore they must pay municipal services and so on, and go and build a similar house at "nobody" which is not zoned as such yet at the same time they expect refuse collection, electrification and water services. So, we also move with speed in the demarcation process to make sure that we can also capture revenue which is necessary for the provision of these services. Thank you very much.
Question 241: