Modulasetulo, maloko a hlomphehileng le baeti ba rona ba kgabane, re le amohetse Ntlong ena ya ketsamelao. [Chairperson, hon members and our distinguished guests, we welcome you to this House.]
This Budget Vote occurs after the successful performances of three peoples' teams: the three cups for Orlando Pirates ... [Laughter.] ... FC Barcelona's devastation of Manchester United ... [Laughter.] ... and, finally, but most importantly, the ANC's massive victory in the local government elections. [Applause.]
Chairperson, if you notice a bounce in our step as we walk down the corridor and in the street, take it that good things - great performances - must be celebrated. It is in order to do that. Of course, both winners and losers can legitimately say that we could have done even better, but, hey, three cheers for the champions. We in the ANC are proud but humble, because we built on the foundation of success laid by giants, some of whom are no longer with us. Madiba's vote said to all of us that voting is an important civic duty to be performed every time. We must also congratulate government on meeting the constitutional deadline to hold the elections on time.
These congratulations also go to the exemplary leadership role you played, Minister, in co-ordinating the interministerial committee that made the elections a great success. The demarcation board itself deserves congratulations too on completing its task on time.
We have to say "take five" to the IEC for running a successful civic campaign to urge voters to turn up and vote. They did so in their numbers. To the SABC, working together with the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, CSIR, "take five" too for excellent and informative coverage of the elections. "Take five" too, incoming councillors, members of mayoral committees, executive committee members and Chief Whips.
There are key tasks that are emerging. What are these key tasks confronting all of us now that the elections are over? It goes without saying that implementation of the manifesto and the message we sent to the voters are the key things for implementation. Having listened further to the people during the election campaigns, we must now act with even more urgency to lift the majority of our people out of ongoing unacceptable levels of poverty, unemployment and underdevelopment.
We must pursue jobs, education, health, rural development and a crime and corruption-free society with added zeal to transform the quality of life of the majority of our people. Having emerged from those elections, it is clear why the need for deepening the democratic involvement of people in their own development is urgent. Doing so promises to accelerate communication, responsiveness and acting on the desires of the people in whose name we do the work we do here.
Comrade Minister, we hope the programme the Ministry and Salga have briefed us about on the transition will be acted upon with speed, tempered by the necessary democratic sensitivity to the incoming councillors' own views, as well as their peculiar needs. We urge the Ministry and the department, including your provincial counterparts, to work with ex-councillors who are willing to support this work, and that new councillors themselves also be open and willing to be assisted by those who were there before in order to help them hit the ground running even faster.
We urge the public and communities to allow the new incoming teams to absorb their mandate, roles and relationships they will need to do their work more effectively. These incoming teams must cultivate proper, respectful relationships with the professionals employed in the councils so that their manifestos see the light of day even faster.
Exercising sensitive political oversight, without micromanaging these professionals, is a key approach from what we have come to understand in terms of these issues not being handled properly before. These professionals themselves need to be political without advancing their party- political agendas. But they must appreciate the dynamics of stakeholder engagement that leads to all-round satisfaction with the quality of their work and, thus, earns them the respect of their principals. We expect nothing but co-operation between the councillors, professionals and workers and their trade unions in the interests of transforming the workplace and service delivery.
The role of the department you lead, Minister and Deputy Minister, is crucial in supporting councils to achieve the goals we outlined above. We have come to the conclusion that the turnaround strategy is clearly one of the key weapons you will need to do this work. The turnaround strategy and the Local Government: Municipal Systems Amendment Bill are key instruments, which, once the issues with Samwu, the SA Municipal Workers Union, are settled, will have a major impact on local government practises in the country. The political parties themselves must do their bit urgently to help stakeholders appreciate the value of this proposed law.
The quantum of resources, Minister, as contained in the budget, will always be considered inadequate for a variety of reasons, principal amongst these being the deep level of poverty and the challenges that poses. So, it is the business of all of government to take measures and take risks that will improve the quantum of resources, even as we tackle in practice the challenge of integrity-driven governance - in other words, using resources appropriately for what they are meant to be used for and in a manner that satisfies institutions that are responsible for managing them.
Although we have had political differences and other differences - we still do - with former Member of Parliament Gavin Woods, we agree with him, however, when he calls for what he calls a defensive and offensive strategy to deal with corruption, as articulated in Delivery, the magazine for local government. By "defensive" he means closing down opportunities for corrupt activities, strengthening understanding and compliance with existing measures and systems as found in the Public Finance Management Act and the Local Government: Municipal Finance Management Act. By "offensive" measures he refers to increasing the risks of being corrupt, of speeding up investigations and acting against those who are found guilty.
This stance will no doubt speed up our achievement of clean audits and governance, as demanded by the people who have just returned us in numbers to run the councils in our country. The proper management of finances is crucial in its own right, but especially so as to make such finances reach the furthest to reverse backlogs in services to communities, and to maintain those already in place and in a good condition.
Mr Minister and Chairperson, we would like to argue once more that we need to attend to the matter of statistics that inform our planning nationally and locally, so that these are as up to date as possible. We recommend that Cogta, Statistics SA, Treasury, and the Financial and Fiscal Commission consider this matter urgently. And we suggest including the Development Bank of Southern Africa as per the recommendation of the budget review recommendation report, by the way. We are just restating it. We believe that creating capacity in each metro and district is a crucial step in that direction.
Unattended, councils will continue to suffer the consequences of inadequate funding which strains their relationships with communities. Linked to this matter is attending to the missing urban policy that was meant to flow from the consideration of the urban renewal pilot programme. That programme, which you, Mr Minister, may have integrated into other programmes, was meant as a pilot programme to provide lessons and generate ideas on how to run cities, and so on.
It is becoming increasingly urgent to deal with the now-recognised interconnectedness of the urban and the rural. This matter is made more urgent owing to the key roles cities play in the socioeconomic life of our country. The populations in cities and towns continue to grow in size and social complexity as a result of rural and international migration, making their governance a challenge as there are plenty of opportunities and risks that require national and provincial support.
Sir, we would like to compliment your department on working with the Departments of Human Settlements and Transport to give cities powers that will improve their ability to plan more effectively to undo the apartheid spatial fragmentation that still bedevils our cities and towns.
We would like to express some disappointment though, Mr Minister, at disaster management having fallen so low on the agenda of government; this, despite the message that climate change is giving us in practice everywhere in our country and elsewhere in the world.
A one-time mayor of a little town in Japan was attacked for what people thought, at the time, was a waste of money on a huge wall he had built around the town. But he was thanked profusely recently because, owing to that wall, the town was one of the least affected by the tsunami that caused a near nuclear disaster recently in Japan. In other words, his prescience and vision were the key factors. The question we pose is: How many of our cities have studied their vulnerabilities - as the Disaster Management Act requires - and have taken preventative measures? What support has the national government given to implement this 2003 piece of legislation?
The R850 billion infrastructure investment now being laid out in the country is at risk, sir, if we do not prioritise disaster management as part of the integrated development plans. The resources we do not spend now to do this work may treble even more in future in ways that are going to be clearly unsustainable. Worse still, we can't afford to lose lives when these disasters occur, such as we already have.
Councils are key in agitating and taking proactive steps to mobilise communities to take preventative measures. We appreciate that Salga has commissioned research into this matter. We hope its findings will be supported by the Ministry and the department in that they prioritise disaster management in councils and in government.
In fact, this action of commissioning research just illustrates the point we made earlier about the necessity of up-to-date information. A lack of up- to-date information prevents the making of the correct decisions, not only in terms of quantum, but also in terms of the impact of decisions that are made that are not adequate for the challenge posed by the problems we have already identified.
We would like to stress here that the function and work of traditional leaders is a key programme that requires ongoing support, firstly, to mediate the relationships traditional leaders have with communities in the areas of their jurisdiction; and, secondly, with a view to insisting and ensuring that the manner in which we conduct and carry out development practices in those areas - which happen to be rural - is consultative.
But that, too, Minister, links to one crucial point that we have made already. We do not understand why we should be signing off integrated development plans that do not reflect support for rural areas in the jurisdiction of those municipalities, in a way that is reasonable. We really appeal to all players in the local government sphere in that our work with the Department of Rural Development and Land Affairs is crucial.
There is no way that we will be able to manage this programme unless we work in an integrated manner as the integrated development plans - as their name implies - entail. This administration has prioritised rural development because we would like to undo past neglect in these areas. The most vulnerable ones must be the priority of all of government.
The most effective way to do this, we believe, is for the integrated development plans - even as the planning is being handled by the emerging Planning Commission - to remain the key planning instrument of all of government. In a sense, we really feel that this is going to make a huge difference.
Your department, sir, will have the biggest impact on the work you have already started in co-ordinating the work you do with Human Settlements, with Transport and with Water and Environmental Affairs. The challenges that are emerging out of working across those departments are huge. They can't be handled by anyone of this department in any effective way, never mind in their relationship with municipalities. Therefore, we extend congratulations on the efforts that are headed in this direction. We would like to urge that these moves be done with greater speed. Thank you very much. [Applause.]
MACROBUTTON HtmlResAnchor