Deputy Chairperson, unfortunately I've got to go through a little bit of the preliminary because that is how I prepared mine, despite the fact that the Deputy Minister has gone through most of it.
The Constitution Twelfth Amendment Act of 2005 amended the Constitution by redetermining the geographical areas of the nine provinces of the Republic and the Cross-Boundary Municipalities Law Repeal and Related Matters Act of 2005 and at the same time provided for consequential matters arising from the realignment of former cross-boundary municipalities and the redetermination of the geographical areas of the provinces.
In terms of these laws, the provincial boundary between the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal was altered so that the area that previously formed the local municipality of Matatiele was relocated to the province of the Eastern Cape and new municipal boundaries of course were created as a consequence.
The constitutional validity of the laws was challenged in the Constitutional Court and that part of the Twelfth amendment which effectively relocated the Matatiele Municipality to the province of the Eastern Cape was found to be inconsistent with the Constitution and therefore invalid. The Constitutional Court stated among other reasons that Parliament had taken over the functions of the demarcation board and had not invited written submissions or held public meetings or hearings.
The order of invalidity was suspended for 18 months to give Parliament the opportunity to correct the constitutional defect and the Thirteenth Amendment Bill seeks to redetermine the provincial boundary.
As the DA did not support the twelfth amendment on the grounds that the wishes of the local inhabitants were not taken into account and in view of the fact that the opinions of the people of Matatiele were not determined at the time, we opposed the twelfth amendment.
While the DA is not against doing away with cross-boundary municipalities per se, we were opposed to the manner in which it was done. While public hearings have subsequently been held in the
Matatiele Municipality and many written submissions received, we are of the opinion that possibly a referendum should have been held in the area to truly ascertain the wishes of the inhabitants.
The judgment against the KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Government's failure to include the Matatiele community in a participatory process should warn us that democratic participation is no longer considered a triviality or technicality.
Cross-boundary municipalities are complex structures that may easily become the domain of bureaucratic and administrative manipulation and control. The residents of Khutsong have now also appealed to the Constitutional Court and we await that outcome with great interest.
When will government learn that not all service delivery is equal among the provinces, for various reasons, despite the Minister's statement that we are one country? Try convincing the people who must move from a reasonably well-functioning province to a poorly-functioning province. This can and will only lead to various levels of social discontentment, upheaval and unease of social relationships all round. I thank you. [Applause.]