Hon Chair, the debate on this budget gives us the chance to ask the question: What has the department done within the limits of its constitutional powers to ensure good governance in the country's municipalities and will this budget support those efforts?
I have previously drawn the attention of the House to the perilous state of local government. It would not be going too far to say that the collapse and failure of local government in our country puts in peril the possibility of government delivering a decent life for all.
This is not something to be taken lightly or to be glossed over, as it has been for election purposes. We must be clear that this is not a matter of opinion, because in many parts of the country municipal governance has been so bad that service delivery and infrastructure roll- out are actually going backward. Water and sewerage treatment plants, roads and electrical infrastructure have been without maintenance for so long that they are breaking down irretrievably. Not only are they unable to cope with the roll-out of services to people who have lived for too long without, but they're increasingly unable even to deliver the capacity they were designed for because of that lack of maintenance.
Municipal government is running through its capital and faces the prospect of falling further and further behind, with service delivery becoming nothing more than a cruel and empty promise.
So what has the department done to tackle the problems bedevilling local government? It has pinned everything on the local government turnaround strategy. The question then is: Is that working? To answer that, let's look at Tswaing Municipality in the North West. Much of that municipality is dysfunctional and has been for some time. It was placed under administration about a year ago.
A highly paid administrator was sent in and then nothing happened. Residents' representatives meeting the administrator reported that he had no clue where to begin. He began without even any documentary records of what had gone on before. There is speculation that documents had been destroyed so as to provide no evidence of any wrongdoing by anybody in the council.
One by-product of administration was that no council meetings were held and thus an important oversight mechanism was removed. The administrator was forced to try to operate in a morass of factional political infighting. Councillors from a different faction to the administrator decided he was targeting them and they did everything they could to ensure that he was not successful.
So, despite the presence of the administrator, the investigations by the Special Investigating Unit, the Gobodo Forensic Audit team, the intervention of the department and of the provincial Premier, after a year the municipality cannot point to any substantive record of services having improved.
There appears to be no control over and no backup for the administrator and nothing to impose political discipline to stop factionalised councillors from interfering in the rescue mission. The department has spent serious money on this rescue mission, but appears to have achieved little or nothing.
I've talked about Tswaing; the same could be said for Madibeng, where its residents have water because DA councillors stood in the mud and fixed the water pump themselves, or Kou-Kamma which still cannot deliver water to some of its residents and refuses to take action against staff who are drunk on duty.
Administration has not worked anywhere in the North West. I suspect it is not working in many other failed municipalities. It seems clear then that the problems that the department is trying to solve do not include some of the most important problems.
So what are those problems? For a start, a lack of leadership and control which goes right to the top. Why do we have a politically crippled Minister still in that position? He is medically unable to perform his duties. Perhaps even worse, some of the allegations of wild overspending have, in part, been confirmed by the Minister himself and other allegations have yet to be investigated.
The impression that is left is that the man who is supposed to be ending financial recklessness is himself up to his neck in it. That cannot go anywhere at all towards restoring discipline and financial prudence.
Perhaps there's been no action against the Minister for reasons of political loyalty, but that does show gross disloyalty to vows that government officials have made to serve the people of South Africa.
Why do we have a caretaker Minister in a position as important as this? The Acting Minister has other work and it is not fair to him or the public to expect him to devote the kind of attention that this department needs to sort out the mess.
Why has the Deputy Minister not been promoted? He, at least, is somebody who knows his subject, having clearly devoted himself to the task at hand. But whatever his efforts ... [Interjections.] [Laughter.] ... I knew you'd be embarrassed. But whatever his efforts, he cannot succeed unless he has the power.
Is his lack of promotion, I wonder, to do with the fact that he doesn't bring a sufficiently important political constituency with him? [Interjections.] Is that what overrides merit in this case? That surely would never have been the case in the ANC of Nelson Mandela. How sad that it seems to be the case in the ANC of Jacob Zuma. While on the subject of lack of top-level control, I'd like to pose what will, unfortunately, likely be a rhetorical question. Why are municipalities being allowed to buy expensive billing software from Belgium when it is clearly unusable? The reason it is unusable is that it is written not in English, but rather in Flemish.
We know of two municipalities that have purchased this software, apparently with top-level approval, and a third may or may not have bought it - that are currently stonewalling answering that question. In those two towns that have bought it, it is still lying unused on the shelf. Think how ridiculous this is. Imagine if the situation was reversed and towns in Belgium were buying software which was only written in Zulu - not a likely contingency in Belgium, and it shouldn't happen here. But, once again, there appears to be no control.
And I can predict one response from the government. I'm sure somebody will point to the rather unimpressive victory in the local government elections in the past and say that the electorate doesn't believe that the picture is as bad as the one I'm painting; or do not for a moment think that the achievements of the ruling party were any endorsement of its performance as far as service delivery is concerned. Rather, the ANC's performance in this local election was a result of historical loyalty and a campaign of such grotesque racism as we have not seen since the demise of the last regime. [Applause.] It did the ANC no credit and the country no favours.
But there's one thing the election has done. It has given this government an opportunity to start with something of a clean slate. You can start afresh, make some profound changes in the way you operate, and the cause of good municipal governance may yet be won.
And here's what you can do differently: Stop cadre deployment. You do not have the talent or the skills within the ruling party to sort out the mess. That South Africa has the talent and the skills, I have no doubt. But while officials are deployed on the basis of loyalty to whatever faction of the ruling party happens to be on top, there will never be enough qualified people to fix the problems.
Secondly, you need to hold people accountable. Too many of the idle, undisciplined, incompetent and corrupt are protected because they have friends in the ANC who have power. You need to rule on the basis of principle, not cronyism. That principle is called the rule of law. Anybody who has not encountered it will find it in our Constitution.
Thirdly, start playing open cards with South Africans. It is massively difficult to get information on local government in ANC-run municipalities. Information is withheld and hidden to the point at which even if government is clean, it seems like it is not.
People would trust local government if they could see what it was doing. Trying to hide behind obfuscation and, even worse, trying to bring in a new law to make information secret will only make things worse. Some may think they can hide failure with this law. All you will do is guarantee further failure.
Fourthly, break the chains that bind the ruling party to the unions. The SA Municipal Workers' Union, Samwu's, refusal to accept the Local Government: Municipal Systems Amendment Act, which is a step in the right direction, shows exactly where the problem is. The unions of the Congress of SA Trade Unions, Cosatu, are heavily embedded in the system as it is and are unashamed in using their ability to paralyse government to further embed their members in government departments. That means the best people for the job will never be appointed and nobody will ever be held accountable. This government has to choose between Samwu and success, because it can't have both.
This budget shows at least an awareness of what is wrong. There is increased spending on infrastructure - the special purpose vehicle, SPV, seems like it might be a good idea. We have to invest in infrastructure and maintenance. But that infrastructure spending should be carefully controlled so that we get value for our money, and this is where I disagree with you, Minister, spending doesn't necessarily mean delivery. Let us make sure that contracts are not given out to enrich friends.
Also on this budget there is more spending on governance and control. Good ideas and very necessary, but we question whether the increased spending will merely create more posts and oversight structures which have no effect. Without addressing the fundamental problems, I fear I will be standing here next year saying the same thing. Please prove me wrong! [Time expired.] [Applause.]