House Chairperson, Minister and Deputy Minister, MECs, members, ladies and gentlemen, we agree with the hon Minister as he has indicated the type of people that need to be employed at all administrative levels in government. However, we want the Minister to be careful that we don't have people like Bobby Godsell.
I am saying this precisely because Bobby Godsell was at the helm of the troubled Eskom. However, because Bobby Godsell was white, he was not blamed at all. He is seen as a person who was doing a good job. He was the person who was paying Maroga those millions in bonuses. He did not tell us how much he was pocketing. If you check, you would see that all his money might not be invested here in South Africa, but in London.
Whilst you employ these good skills, I am not sure whether Bobby Godsell is good for this country. Therefore I urge the Minister to check on all those people too. What legacy does this NCOP want to leave behind? Definitely not people like Bobby Godsell; we don't want to leave that here.
The second thing is that it is important that you work very fast with regard to the issue of land. The reality of the matter is that almost 40% of the Western Cape does not belong to South Africa. If you take note of the land close to the sea, you will realise that most of that land has been bought by foreigners. They are running very fast to make sure that the Western Cape belongs to England. You need to be very aware, Minister, that we are dealing with that situation.
The National Anti corruption Forum, NACF, in its 1999 conference report defined corruption as:
... any conduct or behaviour in relation to persons entrusted with responsibilities in public office which violates their duties as public officials and which is aimed at obtaining undue gratification of any kind for themselves or for others.
We understand that, despite logic dictating otherwise, corruption is still a challenge in local government. It works day in and day out to undermine the advances we made in building a better life for our people. Logic dictates that all of us, as part of a nation healing itself after years of inequality and repression, should automatically work actively to write off the wrongs of the past and build a nation which all of us can be proud of.
Unfortunately, practical experience informs us that this is not the case, particularly within government. There are pockets of individuals engaged in corrupt practices, which in turn erodes people's confidence in our ability to serve them.
While most of us in the public sector are women and men of integrity who are driven by the honour to serve our people, there are those whose preoccupation is to enrich themselves at the expense of those who have nothing and basically rely on government for sustainability and wellbeing. One can describe the actions of these individuals as antiprogress and tantamount to treason. It is our collective obligation to obliterate corruption, especially at government level.
Local government has been under the spotlight in recent months due to a wave of protests which brought about clashes between protesting residents and law enforcement authorities. These protests have drawn attention from role-players such as government, commentators and civil society who, while recognising that communities are raising genuine issues, also condemn the violence accompanying the protests.
Corruption is not only hampering service delivery in the Public Service domain, but is also a weakness in our system to deal with the perpetrators. The recent community protests around service delivery issues could also be attributed to corruption. Resources intended for the public good are being diverted to individuals' pockets so that the poor are deprived of desperately needed basic services. It is also theft of our taxes that we work so hard to pay in order to improve public service.
Through your local government turnaround strategy, LGTAS, ensure that all allegations of corruption, nepotism and maladministration are speedily dealt with, without fear or favour. The strategy should ensure that transgressors are dealt with in a transparent manner, and that those found guilty of corruption, nepotism or maladministration are held accountable.
Equally, the department should actively address the causal systematic and accountability problems in this sphere. It is clear, hon Minister, that a holistic and multifaceted approach must form the foundation of the turnaround strategy to resolve the situation.
You will recall that early this year and late last year, as the select committee, we visited several municipalities carrying out oversight functions in terms of section 139 of the Constitution. At the heart of most of these interventions are corruption, maladministration, fraud, and nepotism, which ultimately affect administration and, consequently, service delivery. As this House, we have a constitutional responsibility to ensure that municipalities maintain national standards or meet established minimum standards for rendering services.
We cannot abdicate this responsibility and let communities suffer at the hands of people who are otherwise more interested in issues unrelated to the wellbeing of the community. For that, we will not hesitate to intervene and cause the re-election of leaders who will put the interests of the community first.
Equally, the department has a responsibility to ensure that practical measures are taken to ensure that perpetrators are brought to book. In Nala Local Municipality, which is situated in Bothaville, for example, the former chief financial officer, CFO, was found guilty of misappropriation of funds. However, as the select committee, when we went to carry out oversight functions there, we found out that the same official had recently been appointed as the municipal manager of the Nala Local Municipality. Something should definitely be done about this. Those perpetrators robbing our municipalities need to ... [Time expired.] [Applause.]
Ms N DUBE (KwaZulu-Natal): Hon Chairperson, Deputy Chairperson of the NCOP, national Minister for Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Deputy Minister, hon members of the NCOP and special delegates, hon members, the quality of our leadership is at present being severely tried and we attempt to govern the country at a time when our communities have spoken in no uncertain terms when they voted the ANC into government.
The wails of our people have rung out loud against the slow pace of service delivery. Indeed, much has been done in our country to usher in the system of democratic local government which seeks to serve and make the lives of our people better. It is on the basis of the above-mentioned considerations that, as the department of co-operative governance and traditional affairs in KwaZulu-Natal, we have formulated our work plan in the form of the 2010- 11 budget speech, upon which we will ensure our municipalities truly become vehicles of delivery of services.
On 14 April, we expressed our statement of ensuring action to the people of KwaZulu-Natal. We have also committed ourselves to assisting municipalities to accelerate the delivery of services. Our multipronged strategy programme will ensure the turnaround strategy for municipalities; ensure the effective and efficient delivery of services and the enhancement of traditional leadership institutions in development as part of fighting against poverty; eradicate fraud and corruption; ensure the achievement of financial viability for our municipalities; and enhance public participation in the affairs of local government and traditional leadership institutions.
These priorities are an indication of a serious change in our approach by way of ensuring delivery and implementation of service at the municipal space. These are the objectives which go in tandem with the national priorities as contained in the Medium-Term Strategic Framework, MTSF, of 2009 to 2014. Thus, the department of co-operative governance and traditional affairs has been positioned to perform strictly within these parameters. The department's priorities, as set out in the plan, have been directly drawn from the national priorities which include, amongst others, the speeding up of economic growth and transformation of the economy to create decent work and sustainable livelihoods.
The success of our plan in terms of our budget hinges much on the turnaround processes, as well as on the way the government departments within the province of KwaZulu-Natal and the national departments change the way in which they plan and co-ordinate development initiatives which then get implemented in the communities through municipalities. To this extent, the province of KwaZulu-Natal has developed a plan which seeks to ensure that all its departments are co-ordinated in its effort in ensuring the delivery of services.
An example of this is that, as a province, we have taken each and every department and looked at how it integrates with others. For instance, we have identified in our discussion that for the department of education to be able to improve the matric results or the schools' results, they need to ensure that there is proper infrastructure for those schools. They also need to ensure that there is proper sanitation and water for those children so that they are able to be in school, on time, and according to the required timetable.
The department of health has also identified that for our people to enjoy health care and hospital services, they need to ensure that the hospitals have electricity, water, sanitation, and all other services and infrastructure to improve the delivery of services to the communities. The same goes for the department of agriculture, forestry and fisheries and many other departments in our province. We have identified the weakest link.
On our turnaround strategy, the recommendations that we've seen coming from the state of municipalities report really made us focus to ask: "What do we do now since we know where we have gone wrong?" I wish to say that we are in full implementation mode of completing our hands-on approach of assisting our municipalities, together with their communities, to develop their plans.
Our "Operation Clean Audit" has been successfully launched. I'm happy to say that, since our audit, all the municipalities which last year received unclean audits have been called. We have had two dialogues so far. We have devised a turnaround strategy for those audit reports. All the municipalities that received adverse reports have been put under discretionary monitoring so as to make sure that we monitor them every three months to correct whatever problems they would have experienced in those disclaimers and unqualified opinions.
We are also providing a hands-on approach on issues of skills shortage. We now know that there is a problem in terms of the shortage of skills in municipalities. We have sat down and said that we cannot lament anymore, let us grow our own timber. For councillors, we are developing a framework of having mentors. Councillors who have been in council for a long time and have experience will mentor other councillors.
With regard to skills for officials, we are partners with the sector education and training authorities, Setas, to ensure that we take chartered accountants who have just graduated and place them in municipalities so that they can train. These chartered accountants will also be able to work with those municipalities for a certain period of time to ensure the transfer of skills and also to work in stabilising our skills in those municipalities.
With regard to issues of local economic development, the department of co- operative governance and traditional affairs has spent more than R3 million. We have also committed to projects which ensure that we have priority nodes or corridors that benefit the economic growth of our municipalities.
I'm happy to say to members that the latest fruit of our labour in this regard is the production of the Villard Blanc wine which has been part of our War on Poverty Programme. This wine has been developed with the iLembe District Municipality using a co-operative. We are happy to say that when we open our King Shaka Airport and our trade port comes into operation, this product will also be sold worldwide. This is all through the corridor development monies that we are spending to ensure that we grow the economic development of our local municipalities.
We have also been able to have more than 700 job opportunities in the areas of the corridors. We are happy to say that our agricultural processing initiatives and tourism hub as well as the sector projects are moving very well in terms of our local economic development nodes.
With regard to our massification programme, we have realised that in many municipalities there is no capacity to deliver, particularly water, electrification and sanitation. We have budgeted in our programme to ensure that in those areas where municipalities are not able to reach, we help through the massification programme.
Regarding the water purification plant, we are in discussion with the national department in order for us to access water certificates because we have a number of dams in KwaZulu-Natal where municipalities are not able to draw water to service those communities. The national Minister has responded very positively to this initiative. We will be moving to ensure that we put the water purification plant in place so that the people will eventually benefit and enjoy the delivery of those services as well.
We also have a small town rehabilitation programme. You will remember that there are a number of small towns that have really strived to exist since we have freeways and highways. They have become ghost towns and have not been able to attract development or investment. We have invested an amount of more than R55 million to ensure that we beautify these small towns and ensure that there is street lighting. We will also ensure that there is proper communication and police patrols in order for us to attract investment and put confidence back in those communities living in those small towns.
With regard to our municipality property rates, we have all our boards in place. We are happy to say that we are now exploring the second round of two extra boards for the areas of Msunduzi and eThekwini because of the backlog that has been experienced in those areas. We are now looking at the reviewing of the integrated development plans, IDPs, through ensuring that all our turnaround strategies find expression in them. The IDPs will also be part of the implementation of the budget as it will be passed by the municipalities.
With regard to the standing committees on public accounts, Scopas, I'm happy to say that are we not only talking about corruption, but about monies that need to be recovered whether officials have resigned in those municipalities or not. We have recovered more than R9 million so far.
On the role of traditional leadership, we are continuing to support our king in ensuring that institutions of traditional leadership are capacitated as centres of community development. Thank you, Chairperson. [Time expired.] [Applause.]