Speaker, in 2009 the hon President made a commitment to expend R787 billion on infrastructure development. In 2010, he indicated that over the next three years government will spend R846 billion on public infrastructure.
This year, he did not report on how much of the allocated budget was spent, or on what. It is therefore difficult to assess the performance of government regarding infrastructure development over the past two years.
Furthermore, the promise to the South African public to improve their quality of life by bringing them a better quality of municipal services, remains largely unfulfilled. Last year, in your speech, hon President, you insisted that -
Municipalities had improved the provision of housing, water, sanitation, electricity, waste management and roads.
Sadly, Mr President, if some of the provincial and municipal roads in our country, bulk infrastructure and the levels of water pollution at municipal level are anything to go by, your promises remain empty. The municipal roads are deteriorating and rivers within the urban sector have become stagnant sewers, placing lives in danger by exposing them to health hazards.
In the state of the nations address, you also invited the private sector to play a meaningful role in job creation, and this is indeed a progressive gesture and a prerequisite for investment. However, the private sector can only create jobs by investing in a politically stable, economically sound and well-maintained infrastructure environment.
The unstable political environment in the Buffalo City and the Nelson Mandela Metros, under the leadership of the ruling party, is not something any self-respecting South African can be proud of. Therefore, it is not surprising that there are no major investment projects taking place in these areas. Even those projects that were started with enthusiasm, such as the Coega industrial hub, have not lived up to their full potential.
At the beginning of last year, government launched the four-phased turnaround strategy as part of the integrated development planning process. The key sectors that were meant to be involved were water affairs, environment, human settlements, transport, energy and education.
Each sector had to make at least three commitments in respect of each municipality. All of the 283 municipalities, including the targeted municipalities, were supposed to have had a full roll-out by the end of April last year. Phases 2 and 3 were meant to run concurrently.
It is regrettable that the state of the nation address fails to inform the public whether these promises of a turnaround had materialised, and whether the dedicated portfolio teams responsible for the nine functional areas were successful in their respective areas.
It is equally important for the public to know whether the then targeted municipalities still remain dysfunctional after the turnaround intervention.
Although 75% of R2,1 billion allocated to basic infrastructure development in municipalities was spent, it remains unacceptable that over R500 million could not be spent in that same year. This inability by municipalities to spend could be attributed to poor planning, lack of capacity, mismanagement and political interference.
Such lack of capacity is further exhibited by the fact that seven of the 287 municipalities failed to take up their share of the allocation from the R11 billion municipal infrastructure grant, MIG. Thirty-seven other municipalities only utilised half of their MIG allocation in infrastructure development. Surely, Mr President, you cannot be proud of this performance record where 8,9% of the total municipal budgets were unspent in 2009-10 financial year.
To put it into context, R18,9 billion was not spent by municipalities in the same period that our country was witnessing service delivery protests on a scale never seen before. The hon President last year promised government intervention in order to improve the situation in informal settlements.
However, the squalor and the deprivation in our townships, particularly in the informal settlement areas, remain unaddressed. This is an indictment on the government.
This is not surprising given that many municipalities do not have the appropriate skills to even compile credible budgets, or to manage and implement infrastructure development programmes. Thus, major projects such as Cornubia in KwaZulu-Natal and Thornhill in the Eastern Cape were hamstrung.
The same is true in terms of lack of skills and poor performance at the provincial level. The shocking report recently tabled by the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, Scopa, tells the story. Since 2006, according to the Provincial Treasury report, R1,9 billion has been spent on unauthorised expenditure. The interesting thing is that R25 million of this was spent on food parcels.
The departments that were affected have R1 billion unauthorised expenditure; social development, R5,1 million; education, R741 million; local government and traditional affairs, R26 million; agriculture R82,3 million, housing R59,7 million; sport, arts and culture, R2,8 million; safety and liaison R714 000.
All of this demonstrates a lack of capacity, as well as political interference in the running of the affairs of provincial government and local government. If you can address these issues, Mr President, you might find your government running efficiently. Thank you. [Applause.]