Hon Chairperson, hon Ministers and Deputy Ministers, hon members, traditional leaders, director-general, ladies and gentlemen, in the presentation of this budget we have been made aware of the enormous challenges facing our municipalities.
Credit must be given to the department for undertaking extensive research on the state of local government. From the perspective of the ANC, some of the problems identified in the research findings are systemic and structural in nature. Their root causes are directly linked to the legacy of apartheid spatial planning and the economic exclusion of the majority of our population.
They include, among other problems, the breakdown of local representative and participatory democracy; poor, weak and unco-ordinated intergovernmental relations; race and class divisions b ased on spatial planning in terms of communities and human settlements; backlogs in the achievement of universal household access to basic services; the nonviability of municipalities; and increasing grant dependence of municipalities.
Up to now, we have assumed that the constitutional and legislative mechanisms established since the advent of democracy in 1994 were sufficient to address the systemic, structural and legacy issues of local government. These mechanisms included constitutionally determined funding through the division of revenue, the powers of local government to raise revenue, as well as the provision of conditional and unconditional grants flowing from national government to assist municipalities.
Among these is the municipal infrastructure grant. This is an important and strategic intervention which is aimed at supplementing municipal capital budgets to eradicate the backlogs in municipal infrastructure.
The introduction and implementation of integrated development plans for municipalities was also an important transformation tool that, if followed properly, would assist in strategic leadership and logical thinking in addressing some of the systemic, structural and spatial planning legacy problems.
In addition, the type of co-operative governance system that is embedded within our Constitution allows for a range of state interventions through various legislative instruments in areas such as human settlements, land management, spatial planning and implementation of the Bill of Rights. The adoption and implementation of the White Paper on Local Government in 1998 constituted an important milestone in the process of transformation at local levels.
The lessons we have learnt from community protests in the past few years, the outcome findings arising out of this research and what we heard from communities first-hand during the recent local government election campaigns tell us that these measures have shortcomings and have become inadequate.
An assessment of the persistent problems in municipalities would need to take this into account - the success and failures in the implementation of the White Paper on Local Government should be a starting point of departure.
In trying to address these systemic problems, it would be important for the department to lead a process of a comprehensive review of the White Paper on Local Government. This review will assist in evaluating the impact of all the mechanisms that have thus far been implemented and suggest how transformation should be deepened in order to complement the Local Government Turnaround Strategy, the LGTS.
In addition to this, there is also a need to review the current funding model for local government and its formula. These reviews will be consistent with the ANC resolution at its 52nd national conference, which decided that a process should be put in place to develop a White Paper on provincial government and to review the local government White Paper. This process would, in our view, complement the current programme of the department on provincial and municipal government systems.
The main objective of this programme is to provide capacity-building to municipalities through the implementation of the LGTS. The main pillars of the LGTS are: tightening the municipal supply-chain management mechanisms; establishing a single window of co-ordination to curb overregulation of municipalities as identified in the inaugural intergovernmental relations report; implementing special purpose vehicles for infrastructure development, particularly in struggling municipalities; refining the model of ward committees to give effect to participatory democracy in communities; and establishing a single election for all three levels of government in order to save resources and build unity, in line with a single Public Service as well as the financial terms of municipalities.
Its overarching aim is to create a countrywide programme, mobilising all of government and society to embark upon a concerted effort to deal with factors undermining local government and to restore good performance and community confidence in the country's municipalities, leading towards the fulfilment of Vision 2014.
Although the LGTS is new, we are pleased that some of its short-term measures are now in place, such as the passing of the Local Government: Municipal Systems Act Amendment Bill; the development and implementation of the Clean Cities and Towns campaign and the Operation Clean Audit 2014 programme; and the establishment of the special vehicle to drive infrastructure development.
Lastly, in recognising the crucial role of local government in the social and economic transformation of our country, service delivery and nation- building in general, the ANC is fully behind the implementation of the Local Government Turnaround Strategy. We want the department to be supported in leading and co-ordinating its implementation by all spheres of government, as articulated in this budget. The ANC is committed to ensuring that the transformation of local government is achieved in order to enable it to play its constitutional role effectively and efficiently.
Local government is an important element of the developmental state that we are building, and therefore requires the collective participation of all relevant spheres of government as well as the public. To this end, the ANC calls for the House to support this Budget Vote. Thank you. [Applause.]