Chairperson, hon Minister, last year in a frank assessment you highlighted severe challenges facing local government. To a great extent government is still faced with that litany of problems, ranging from governance, financial matters and lack of skills to service delivery problems. The ACDP supports the local government's turnaround strategy, which is an attempt to address these shortcomings and, Minister, your political will in this regard. We really trust that you will succeed.
However, this strategy follows closely on the heels of Project Consolidate, which addressed certain deficiencies but failed in certain respects to place local government on a sound footing. The question is: Why? A major issue is the lack of performance excellence and accountability with many public servants adopting a cavalier attitude.
We thus welcome proposed steps to ensure that municipalities employ only skilled people and are therefore enabled to speed up disciplinary action. We also welcome the commendable decision that party office bearers should not be municipal managers. This is a good start towards ensuring stable and competent leadership at municipalities.
Most municipalities are facing severe financial challenges resulting in qualified audits and disclaimers. While we as the ACDP support Operation Clean Audit, how can the department require that all municipalities and provincial governments achieve clean audits by 2014 when the department itself received a qualified audit last year? That clearly is an issue that we need to look at.
Why is it that service delivery problems and protests persist, notwithstanding that transfers have increased consistently over the years? One of the reasons is clearly that the basic needs of citizens are not being addressed, and that is a challenge. While it is regrettable, it is no wonder that poor communities display impatience with government in violent service delivery protests over potholes, poor sanitation, housing and unemployment. There is clearly a pressing need to promote clean government. Thank you. [Time expired.] [Applause.]