Thank you, Chair, and hon members. From hearing the contributions of members, I think we are all of one mind in wanting to strengthen this sphere of government.
Firstly, the chairperson of the select committee raised a number of issues, which I think have to be followed up, in particular issues relating to clean audits, as this issue affects us at management and procurement level. Perhaps I must say here that from the point of view of the executive, processes have been put in place to strengthen particularly procurement. The major problem at local government level, which does not only exist in that sphere of government, has to do with how the procurement process is conducted and to what extent it affects service delivery. The challenge which was raised about political leadership is welcome, and will be taken on board to ensure that it is corrected.
The specialist the chairperson talked about leads me to my second point: from MEC Bredell to the hon member Byleveldt - all the members who spoke, including the Deputy Minister and the hon Mofokeng - emphasised the point of capacity-building. I think this area has been raised time and time again. What is important now is to focus on specific programmes. What do we do to come back tomorrow and not raise the very same questions? The Siyenza Manje programme and special purpose vehicle are aimed at that, because capacity-building, over and above what we need to do for councillors, has to do with skills - technical skills - in this particular sphere of government. So, when it comes to these two areas, the Siyenza Manje programme and what the Minmec said last time must be communicated to the people concerned. These programmes aim to address just that, and I think that we will succeed in doing that. Again, hon MEC, the issue of the Bill is important to all of us. It is also important to the President of the Republic himself. I think one of the things that we said last week is that if the President wants to satisfy himself that everything is in order, we will not be challenged when we implement the law. Let that happen. I am sure that as he does that, as he has said in the past, he himself wants to see speedy movement particularly in this area.
I want to emphasise the issue raised by the Deputy Minister, in particular, on service delivery. To our communities and the public out there: whilst government has to lead in service delivery, the public has a role as well. If we take, for instance, the Clean Cities and Towns programme, it is the duty of everybody not to litter, so that we also make our towns and cities habitable and clean. It is a job for all of us. It is a very important aspect of our lives which, in most cases, is taken very lightly.
I also want to move to what the hon member Zulu raised, but just before that, I would just like to say that I agree with the hon Byleveldt, particularly on the strengthening of the ward committees. It will also depend on the type of councillors. That is why it is very important that we implement the councillor induction programme, the CIP, in a co-ordinated fashion. In fact, the MEC has forgotten one very important aspect and that is the training of councillors on the Local Government Turnaround Strategy. There has to be a programme. After you have skilled people, after you have built up their capacity, what is it that they have to do to ensure that there is progress in so far as that is concerned? We also emphasised that, when it comes to councillors, from a conceptual perspective we needed to ask why it would be important for communities to have good councillors. It would also be important for us, as public representatives, to interact with communities and ensure that the very basic duty of ward committees is collectivism in terms of committees, so that the councillor himself or herself is not a lone ranger in that sphere. I fully agree with that.
Hon Zulu, there are a lot of challenges on the issue of funds, as you referred to. Part of the challenge is what we are dealing with: capacity- building. The capacity to spend is one such challenge. We should look at how much municipalities are given but, at the same time, how much they are able to spend in terms of what they've been given or allocated. The issue of corruption in local government is a very important issue, on which the Minister for Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs and the Minister of Police are working together. [Laughter.] Indeed, there is progress. There are people who have, through the process, been imprisoned and others who have been released in the process.
All in all, I think that the criticisms and points raised have been very productive, and I think that we have to go back, do our homework, and correct some of the things the hon members have raised. Thank you very much. [Applause.] Debate concluded.
Business supended at 11:39 and resumed at 14:00.
Afternoon Sitting