Hon Chairperson, hon Minister, hon Deputy Minister, hon Members of Parliament, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, the local government equitable share is the share of nationally raised revenue, which is payable to the local government sphere in terms of section 214 of the Constitution.
For this financial year, R40,5 billion has been allocated to the local government equitable share. Over the years, this allocation has grown significantly. This reflects a commitment, as shown by the ANC government, to provide municipalities with greater resources to provide basic services.
In the 53rd conference of the ANC, the delegates resolved that the ANC government should address the issue of the equitable distribution of the local government equitable share across municipalities. In their collective wisdom, delegates resolved that there should be a major review of the local government finance system and should include a review of the equitable share formula.
The 2013-14 budget gives expression to the above-mentioned resolution as far as appropriations to equitable shares are concerned. This financial year sees the introduction of a revised equitable share formula that incorporates the latest census data and targets the most vulnerable municipalities without disadvantaging the relatively well-off municipalities.
All of the country's rural municipalities are set to benefit from this revised formula. This formula provides a subsidy for free basic services. However, underspending of the local government equitable share remains a chronic problem. Underspending of this allocation amounted to a total of R713,7 million as at 31 March 2013. In the 2011-12 financial year, National Treasury withheld R1,2 billion of the local government equitable share allocation due to the fact that municipalities were not spending their conditional grants.
The department will need to attend to the weak institutional and government structures that encourage these trends. If this is not addressed effectively, the benefits of additional funding to the poor municipalities may not be realised.
Under the ANC-led government the Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities has been established to bring together the historically divided communities across cultures. It is through this commission that minority African groups such as the San and Khoi have been recognised. The commission's annual performance plan, as presented to Parliament in March 2013, will require a much more focused approach if it is to be realised. This will have to be in the areas of objective timeframes, activities and deadlines.
Disaster management is the mechanism through which emergency or disaster situations can be successfully managed and co-ordinated to ensure that the normalisation of any situation can take place in the shortest time possible. The Disaster Management Contingency Plan enables the local authority to react in a co-ordinated way with the aim of saving lives and properties. One of the programmes in which a significant amount of funds is invested is the disaster response management programme. For this financial year, R534,6 million is provided for disaster relief transfers to ensure the swift allocation and transfer of funds to affected provinces and municipalities. Unfortunately, red tape still hampers the release of these funds to disaster-stricken areas.
According to the department's 2011-12 annual plan, a disaster relief fund amounting to R727 million was unspent due to assessment processes that took longer than anticipated. This needs to be rectified urgently.
The implementation of local government turnaround strategies centres on the following key focus areas: service delivery, governance, financial management, and fighting corruption.
In the last Budget Vote speech, the Minister reported having identified over 300 pieces of legislation that are said to be impeding service delivery. The process of reviewing this still awaits completion. A team of lawyers is at work to deal with this matter so that it can establish facts, validate the claims and then continue to review the law. More should be done to expedite this process.
As acknowledged in the department's 2011-12 annual report, service delivery protests are rapidly becoming a fixed element of the South African sociopolitical landscape. More needs to be done to address service delivery challenges and to prevent violent protests. The ANC welcomes the amendment of the Local Government: Municipal Systems Act and the recent publication of the regulations for the application of conditions of service for senior managers in the municipalities.
However, the time-lag between the gazetting, the amendment Act and the publication of regulations may see unsuitable individuals being appointed before the regulations come into effect. A clear strategy to deal with this problem needs to be developed.
The ability to sustain sound financial management in local government is vital to the financial viability of municipalities. In this regard, under the leadership of the ANC, the department has undertaken a number of encouraging efforts, including Operation Clean Audit and the establishment of municipal public accounts committees.
While the clean audits campaign is in place, poor audit outcomes ... [Interjections.] Listen! ... of local government for the last financial year are a cause for concern. The municipal public accounts committees, on the other hand, have been fully established. The next step is to ensure their functionality.
Corruption must be stamped out. The ANC sees corruption as a cancer that slowly eats away the very soul of the poor. The ANC government will continue to perfect the intervention that it has introduced to deal with corruption.
Strengthening measures to fight corruption is one of the departmental policy priorities for the 2014 financial year. In this regard, the ANC government has committed itself to establish the corruption ... [Interjections.] Ke a leboga. [Thank you.] The ANC supports the Budget Vote. [Time expired.] [Applause.]