Madam Deputy Speaker, local government is a mess. For political reasons, of course, this government would argue that it is not as bad as it actually is.
Nevertheless, we all agree that there are problems that need to be addressed. The question then is: Will this Bill lead to municipalities being better governed? The answer is yes, but it is a qualified yes.
This Bill has some dozen significant provisions and they tick some of the boxes about what is wrong in municipalities. We like the fact that municipal managers and managers reporting directly to them are prohibited from being office bearers of political parties.
We believe, however, that the provision to this effect in the Bill is still so wide open that you could drive a bus through it. The definitions are sloppy; for instance, we believe that this provision should also apply to certain politically active trade unions. Nevertheless, it is progress. Another significant effect is that this Bill provides for the reporting of disciplinary actions against municipal officials to the MEC and then to the Minister, so that other municipalities are warned against employing managers with poor disciplinary records.
The reporting time periods, however, are not consistent and once again the effect is that loopholes arise. When we pointed these out in the committee, we were told that they could be sorted out through the courts. That comment is the comment of people who have never experienced how slowly the courts work, or how high legal bills can climb. Nevertheless, this is once again another step in the right direction.
As an exercise to try and find out the effect of this Bill on a dysfunctional municipality, it is useful to see what impact it would make. I recently visited Sannieshof in Tswaing municipality in the North West province, and surveyed some of the problems there. About half of the significant provisions of this Bill might have some effect on the problems in Tswaing. Yes, there would be stricter frameworks within which local government would operate. Yes, the personnel could be better chosen, but there are still problems.
Cadre deployment strictly limits the pool from which national government draws the people it deploys to conduct work in the municipalities. Are there other people outside the ranks of the ruling party who could help put these dysfunctional municipalities back together? Yes. Is there a chance that they will be employed? Very little!
Thus, you can have all the rules you want, but if you do not have the people who are able to carry out the work, nothing will get fixed. This Bill won't fix the water pumps and it won't provide taps for the people of Pelindaba.
I have already talked about a provision in this Bill which stops the appointment of political office holders. This has been trumpeted as a move against cadre deployment, but this boast is really just a publicity stunt. Senior members of the ruling party have indicated that cadre deployment remains policy, and this practice on the ground shows it is still rife.
If you want to challenge me on this, look at the case of Siphiwo Sohena, who has been deployed as the acting municipal manager of Mbhashe Municipality in the Eastern Cape. This is a deployee who already has a record of ruining one municipality and being dismissed from it.
The MEC in the Eastern Cape says that this gentleman has proven himself to have the required capacity and capability needed to manage a municipality! That would certainly be true if the required capabilities are being capable of issuing illegal tenders and spending wastefully. The point I'm making here is that if the political will does not exist to fix these problems, you won't fix them. Even more, it cannot exist while the ruling party's policy of cadre deployment remains in force.
Looking at this Bill, another question arises. Why is it necessary? Surely most of the changes to the Local Government Municipal Systems Act contained herein could have been taken care of through regulation; or alternatively, the same effect could be achieved through party discipline. Again, the problem is one of a lack of political will.
I do not believe that the ANC wants to risk upsetting its own local structures by imposing party discipline on them. Thus it wants to pass this law and use it to sort out its own mess. So we are in effect using legislation to try and fill the gap that has been left by political weakness.
There's another overarching problem that makes us uneasy about this Bill, despite its positive aspects. It is the increase in powers given to central government over the municipalities. We are told that this Bill helps to prepare the way for a single Public Service, which, if it happens, will be the biggest assault on democracy this country has seen since 1994.
We are guided in this belief by the long-established principle, written about by Alexis de Tocqueville as long ago as the 1830s, when he said municipal independence is a natural consequence of the principle of sovereignty of the people.
Now Tocqueville never saw Tswaing Municipality, or confronted our dilemma, which asks the question: What can we do to make it better?
Under current circumstances this Bill is part of what we can do, but it is not enough. We are told that further revisions to legislation are on the way and we look forward to seeing what will be proposed. However, we believe that without addressing the political weakness that underlies the problems in our municipalities, we will struggle to achieve efficient local government in our country. [Applause.]