Thank you, Speaker. Good afternoon, Mr President. Mr President, if you look at the municipal system - you said just now that we should not look at one municipality only, but at the whole lot - you see that it is, in fact, a bit of a mess. The reason for the mess is the failure of the intergovernmental relations system. At least we will give you credit for taking the initiative to hold an indaba last year and set the ball rolling for a turnaround strategy.
The question that arises is: What are you going to do about the provinces? The reason for such a question is due to the fact that I don't think you have grounds to be proud of what is happening in all the provinces. There are problems of governance, maladministration, corruption, nepotism and lack of service delivery all over the place. The Eastern Cape, North West and Northern Cape are really badly run. As for Mpumalanga, I am not quite sure if it is run by a party or by the mafia. [Interjections.] So, we have real problems.
My question to you, Mr President, is - in fact, I have three questions. Firstly, would you not consider holding a provincial indaba - as you did a municipal indaba - including the legislatures to discuss improving the governance of the provinces?
Secondly, are you satisfied that your Minister for Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs is devoting sufficient time to the provinces? What I see is a department of local government, despite the name change. I am glad that there is a Green Paper coming out, but in terms of actual activity and engagement with the provinces, I don't see a lot of it.
Thirdly, what does your performance agreement with the Minister have to say about his responsibilities in terms of improving the performance of the provinces? Thank you.