Thank you very much, Chairperson. Let me first take this opportunity to thank the people who provide support for the work we do every day. They include the portfolio committee staff in general; the leadership; the staff in the private office and the broader Ministry office; the extended family of co- operative governance, our MECs and mayors, the SA Local Government Association, the Municipal Demarcation Board, the House of Traditional Leaders and the commission that deals with disputes and claims. We are a big family. If I were to name all of them, my 15 minutes would expire while I was doing so.
I want to thank all the speakers who participated in today's debate. I want to indicate that all of you raised very important issues. Even in situations where one could recognise contradictions, we can understand that those are contradictions arising from an attempt to put the same message differently.
We make a commitment that we are going to get the messages that you raised and we will respond to you in terms of how we are taking forward this question of providing leadership to co-operative governance. As Nkosi Mandela has indicated, it is our responsibility not to shelve anything. It is our responsibility to deal with issues and confront them head on.
I will not be responding word for word to everything that was said because I will not have the time to do that. We will definitely respond to you in writing. If I were to try to respond to everyone, taking the speed at which I speak into consideration and the details I would like to provide, it would take approximately an hour or more to respond.
It is true that in dealing with issues of co-operative governance, there is nothing like one-size-fits-all interventions. We have to respond to the situation as it dictates. What helps us - and this is also at the centre of the turnaround strategy - is to first understand the situation that we are dealing with. If you don't understand the situation that you are dealing with and you jump into action, you are likely to apply the wrong intervention to deal with a specific issue. I therefore call on all of us to work together in that regard.
I indicated that we will soon convene a national dialogue. This national dialogue will be meant to deal with issues that we regard as priorities that need to be addressed. That will be the five issues that I referred to and which punctuated our message here today. When we do that, we will get to the core of dealing with these issues.
I must be honest and say that we need more people who are ready to talk about the good things our municipalities are doing. At the end of the day, we focus only on the negative and we don't do more to talk about the good that is actually happening. It is time that we were honest and fair and confronted these issues and dealt with them. I raised this concern with the leadership of the municipalities too.
The mayors are here, including the Mayor of Rustenburg, with whom I raised this matter not long ago. Even the municipalities themselves are not doing enough to expose the good things they are doing in the community. If you visit a municipality in session and sit in the public gallery, all you will hear is, "Agree, agree, agree". You will not hear the debate on the good things that are actually happening. We are doing ourselves a disservice and that gives opportunists a chance to scavenge off those things that they realise we are not doing correctly. [Applause.]
When we convene this dialogue, we will call on all South Africans, including hon Members of Parliament, to be part of providing solutions. I want to indicate that there are some South African institutions, like the Afrikaanse Handels instituut, who wrote to us and indicated that they didn't want to be fence-sitters just crying foul about what was happening in municipalities. They want to get their hands dirty. They appealed to us to use their experience and that is what we are doing.
We will soon announce the areas in which we are working in partnership with the AHI to address some of the issues. That is what we are calling for. There is no hon Member of Parliament who does not have a constituency. All of us have a constituency, but what are we doing in our constituencies to address these issues? You will end up in a situation where you look at things like the hon Boinamo does. When you look at issues of corruption, what comes to your mind is that corruption is equal to preparing for elections. It should not be like that.
We need to deal with issues for what they are. Don't wait for the elections, because you are going to be frustrated. If you wait for the elections, you will be blinded and look only at the negative things. You will end up being beaten because you will have failed to do the things that you ought to have done.
I am extending a simple invitation to all of us to rise above mere opportunism and deal with the issues for what they are. We once more invite you to a dialogue in order to talk about these issues. Take, for instance, issues of service delivery. We need to talk about these issues in terms of what they are. Are these issues about service delivery or has service delivery become a flimsy excuse for people to pursue their own agenda or interests?
Some of the issues raised are fuelled by those whose survival in the elections depends on these accusations because they are always trying to identify the mistakes made by the current leadership so that their dreams can be realised. You will continue to lose opportunities of winning because you are not doing the right thing. So, I am extending the invitation to you to have the dialogue that I referred to earlier.
Hon members, some of our cities will be hosting the Africa Cup of Nations, as the Minister of Sport and Recreation has announced. We need to join forces and support them to champion the cause of the South African way of doing things successfully. They are not only going to succeed in hosting this tournament for the first time but are succeeding in leading their municipalities themselves. They are doing that in provinces where we do have leaders who are providing support.
The MEC for local government in Gauteng told me that we needed to engage with each other and talk about our five priorities in practical terms. When he said that to me, his approach was not opportunistic or motivated by elections. He was doing that as a person who had internalised the obligation to serve this country and ensure a better life for all who live in it. That includes all of us, even Members of Parliament, irrespective of which side they are on.
I agree with the chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs that we need to do something to improve our interventions. It is true, hon Steenhuisen, that if local government fails, government fails. That is why we are saying that of all of us are at the centre of the success of local government. That is why it is our responsibility as the Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs to mobilise all actors: national government, provincial government, local municipalities and even extragovernmental organisations.
Hon Kilian, I ask that you provide my office with the details of Ms Matshine's case. I'll make an effort to reach out to her. Let us have that information so that we can deal with the matter. The mayor of the city is here and we will definitely work as partners. We do not run away from problems, even if they seem to suggest that there is room for improvement on our part. We will confront them. So I'll appreciate it if you can give us that information.
Hon Smith, on the issue of equitable share progress reports, there is a great many things we could say, so we have taken the decision, which will be implemented a day before we present the budget to the NCOP, to provide details on everything that we are saying then. There is a booklet with information on the details of all the things that we have said here. We are going to launch that booklet. We are dealing with the issue of the equitable share formula with the Treasury. We are looking at finalising it after the release of the census report around September.
Hon Segale-Diswai, I fully agree that Salga is very important in terms of promoting co-operative governance. It is in our culture that if you identify a central message that guides your actions, you should put that in a slogan. We have the slogan, "My Salga, my collective voice". It can only be "My Salga, my collective voice" through our own support Salga. We engaged Salga as well and said that this was not something that came as a Christmas present. Salga has to earn it.
There is one area in which we have not yet coined a slogan, but you will help me, hon member. From now on, we want to say, "My demarcation board, my reliable location compass". Chairperson, you heard me; you were there. The issue regarding municipalities debating and taking advantage of local radio stations to share their views with the community is something that we need to look at.
Hon Groenewald, in absentia, we are aware of the issues around reshuffling and reassignment of responsibilities and they happen exactly as you said they do. You can't be an organisation that does not do introspection and make changes where it is necessary to do so. You have to do that if you want to remain a winning organisation.
Let me indicate that the issue regarding the Special Investigating Unit's report on the North West is not lost. After my appointment, one of the first things that people wanted to know was when I was going to release that report. It is not our intention to lose that report. We are going to attend to it and we will pounce on those who are identified as having done something wrong. This is the message that we are sending to people in order to show who we are.
Baba Matshoba, we are looking at issues around funding. The "department of traditional affairs" can't be a branch of the "department of co-operative governance". We have taken note of that. This is a decision that was taken after the national macro-organisation that produced new departments and other entities. Instead of having a proliferation of Budget Votes, a temporary arrangement that will deal with this issue is needed. We are also engaging with Treasury to address that.
However, the department is still in the making and is still very small. We are going to have a strategic planning session because the department can't execute everything that is required to address the elements of traditional affairs at the moment. [Time expired.] [Applause.]
Debate concluded.