House Chairperson, hon Ministers, Deputy Ministers, members and comrades, we are glad to have the opportunity to report to the House the work of the Ad hoc Committee on Co-ordinated Oversight on Service Delivery. My job today is to request you to accept our invitation of reading the report.
We believe that one of the best legacies that demonstrated the injunction "working together to ensure the delivery of quality service to communities" is the recent World Cup, how it was conducted and in particular the role of the host cities and the municipalities of the host cities. In addition to that, others, although they were not host cities, mobilised the population there to participate actively in the work of the World Cup.
It is an example of the potential that exists in the country that each municipality and us at different levels of government can tap into and use to advance the interest of the majority of the people in our country. This report is a small contribution to that quality of work. The terms of reference were that we should conduct public hearings in Parliament and in all nine provinces; conduct co-ordinated oversight visits in rural and urban areas; and table a report consisting of clear and achievable recommendations with a proposed implementation plan.
This is what we are doing today. We have done the job and compiled the report itself in addition to its nine chapters that outline our assessment, observations and conclusions including recommendations. We have listed the specific municipalities that we visited. We, of course, couldn't visit as many of them as we would have liked to.
We also listed the number of stakeholders that we interacted with, including the unfolding of the media campaign that accompanied our work. This point is particularly important because of the role the media played in this particular effort. The report also contains an addendum, a record of the public hearings in the provinces so that you can get a written feel of those interactions. This is crucial for purposes of your constituency work. If you come from some of these areas, we present to you what came out of those with recommendations that often people themselves made about this.
The recommendations are not only in what we say at the end of the report, but are also contained in the specific areas, as we have done in Durban city, Umsunduzi for example. We give an account of what happened in those meetings, what came out of it and what we see as an appropriate recommendation in that area. So, that is why we recommend strongly that members should take an interest in going through the entire report itself, to look at areas in which we are making a recommendation. Part of the responsibility we have is to take them forward.
We divided ourselves into three teams led by hon Stone Sizani and hon Mandla Mandela, and each of us visited three provinces as teams. Our visits were preceded by public advertising through print and electronic media in all official languages - this we did during and after the programme ended. Understandably, public engagement was robust, both on air and in meetings. By opening such a space an opportunity, Parliament received a significant platform to clarify its role, but people themselves welcomed the opportunity to air their views very robustly, as I said.
We were also accompanied by members of committees of the legislature in some of these provinces, but on not all of the visits were we accompanied by these committees in other provinces. Those who came played a very important role because we acted together and they were able to take on board and provide responses to some of the issues that the public raised.
In addition, we were also accompanied by officials from national departments. These played an equally crucial role. They were spot on, and some of the questions they responded to immediately. Some overnight enquiries were made and the information was brought to meetings of stakeholders the following day. So, in the exercise and during the process itself, we delivered information and things were clarified to people, and the communities appreciated that a lot.
Those officials played a crucial role. We also acted as part of the process. We acted on the spot, on issues that were raised by both municipalities and individuals by writing to provincial departments, communicating with them, raising issues that people were raising and expecting responses to.
There are areas in the country where we received very positive responses promptly. These were welcomed by the municipalities and communities in those areas because of the value of such intervention. In other words, in the process of doing the work of enquiry itself, the effort to communicate produced useful results.
We understood that the reasons for protests were complex and different. We also remembered that the 15-year review of the third administration pointed out in advance that, if things went at the pace at which they were going, we were likely to have problems - partly explaining why in some areas some of these problems occurred.
It is the political issues that require urgent attention. The interface of politics and administration, the quality and frequency of public participation, responsiveness to citizens' issues override all factors as explanation of protests. In addition to that, poor conflict management impacts naturally on the running of the councils and the relationship between different spheres of government.
People reported that protests were their last resort - they would ordinarily not have wanted to do so. They said that they often did not see movement on the issues they had raised concerns about. We understood that, should those issues have been addressed in time, often only by communication, things would not have turned as ugly as they did in some of the areas - except, of course, in instances where there was clear political contestation, infighting and campaigning by others who would like to replace those in office.
Municipal tenders, including provincial tenders, housing allocation, management, shortages, water and sanitation, electricity, poor financial management and corruption were issues that emerged as some of the reasons stated as secondary reasons for protests. Although people in some instances had similar problems, they didn't protest because they had responses given to them by officials and councillors in those areas, including departments at provincial level.
In those instances where there were no protests, that would have been the explanation. The difference was made by the active interaction between those who had information and those who could respond to issues on time. The issue of responsiveness was a key one. The issues that were raised were crucial and important. They were not in themselves the major reasons for the protests.
Our recommendations cover areas of governance, areas of anticorruption work, service delivery issues, issues of the Integrated Development Plan, IDP, housing, sanitation, water and electricity, and settlement. The Integrated Development Plans are crucial, but we think that the emerging work of the planning commission is obviously going to be crucial in providing us with a long-term response. We hope that we will be provided with responses that are sustainable, with what we believe is government working together, and that the planning commission's work will make a big difference if the commission's work takes on board the work that is expressed in the Integrated Development Plans.
The implementation of the local government turnaround strategy, whilst important, assumes also that the entire government itself as well as provincial and national departments need to change in a manner that reinforces the positive initiative that is already under way. So that together, these three spheres of government produce the quality of service that we are talking about.
Issues of municipal capacity, financial management and communication are crucial; there is no doubt about it. We also appreciate the support we received from councillors and municipal officials, including administrators in municipalities that had administrators running them. They have played a very important role in shedding light on issues - from here we didn't quite see until we were closely working with them there.
We also appreciate the support given by the technical team of Parliament. They have played an important role. We want to recommend an increased capacity in that area of work. It will make a huge difference in the amount and quality of work that we generate as committees that are doing this kind of work.
Our committee was composed of different committees and that was an important and significant initiative by Parliament-just like the committee that went around the country to look at the state of readiness for 2010, which was composed of different sectoral committees. Similarly, this committee was a very important forum for working together to produce the best results for quality services on the ground.
We hope that some of the recommendations, on which members will touch while speaking today, will shed some light on what we can do. Thank you very much.