Madam Chair, hon Minister, members, I would have thought it was the Government that had it in its power to decide when the election should take place, and not that they were the hostage of any other faction. I want to tell the hon the Minister that the local government portfolio committee reported to Parliament that the ability of a municipality to appropriately implement the provisions of this Bill would depend crucially on issues of capacity, resources and funding, as well as on the political will of public representatives in all three spheres of government.
These are issues which were extremely problematic during the period of transition, as can be deduced from the precarious state in which municipalities now find themselves. Some of these issues can be resolved by legislation, but capacity and political will, which have been glaringly absent during the transitional phase of local government, remain the challenge on which this legislation may flourish or flounder.
The DP believes in small government, but government that delivers. The ANC, on the other hand, has chosen to create bigger municipalities, centralising decisions in the hands of political functionaries, some of whom, it is said, may even be deployed from Cabinet. It is quite clear, as in the case of appointed premiers, that the ANC does not trust the ordinary local communities, whom they claim to champion in this Bill. Their basic reasoning is flawed. Local government should be run by local leaders who are elected by a local community. While so much emphasis in the Local Government: Municipal Systems Bill is on the idea of community participation, even to the extent of considering it central to the Bill, this would immediately be contradicted by the imposition of outsiders as councillors. Why should a community be involved in municipal affairs if merely to give credence to an imposed leadership? So much for community participation!
Another precept of this Bill which enforces the centralist tendency is the multitude of Ministerial guidelines and regulations, something which is becoming a frighteningly regular feature of ANC legislation, which gives sweeping powers to the Minister to interfere in the day-to-day affairs of municipalities. Added to this is the new power division developing between district councillors and provincial government, with funds and services finding direct routes to district councils and by-passing provinces, as well as the increasing role of Salga. This was alluded to by the present Minister in a previous appearance in this House, and is seemingly part of a grand scheme not yet fully revealed to this Council but perhaps linked to the report commissioned on intergovernmental relations.
The Bill proposes that organised local government must seek to develop common approaches for local government as a distinct sphere, while the Constitution states that national and provincial governments must support and strengthen the capacity of municipalities to manage their own affairs. This provision of the Municipal Systems Bill does not empower local government, but prescribes and inhibits its role. Chapter 8, which deals with municipal service providers, illustrates a clear trade-off of competing interests. On the one hand, we have the Minister's dilemma. He is convinced that adequate municipal services cannot be supplied to the majority of citizens unless agreements are negotiated with the private sector, CBOs and NGOs.
Cosatu knows that if privatisation gains momentum its membership will fall. It takes no genius to see who had the final say in the drafting of chapter 8, if we look at the stringent conditions which municipalities have to consider before they can look at private-sector partnerships. One must contrast this with the rebuffed submissions of traditional leaders, reputedly the preferred form of representation of at least 15 million South Africans. The Demarcation Board decimated the boundaries of traditional rural communities without so much as a by-your-leave. Now the whole country is being held to ransom because the Government could not coerce the traditional leaders into line with the 10% additional council seat allocation. So much for community participation!
While the DP truly admires the broad sweep of good intentions underlying the Bill, the philosophy of developmental government, public participation, integrated development plans, performance management, service delivery, and all those good things, it cannot support the way in which they are supposed to be brought about. The authority and control are suspect. Sadly, the poor and disadvantaged may once again become the victims of another transitional failure, probably to the tune of more billions of rand if we do not let common sense and good clean government take control of delivery. The DP cannot support this Bill. [Applause.]