May I start now? Thank you. Madam Chair, hon Minister and Deputy Minister, as the song goes, "Another year older and deeper in debt". This is probably the only way the Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs can describe the state of municipalities today.
The largest portion of the departmental expenditure is on equitable share and the Municipal Infrastructural Grant, MIG. In spite of the annual increase of 14,3% to R36,7 billion in the 2009-10 financial year, the effects of such expenditure is yet to be really felt.
Many MIG projects have failed due to the lack of monitoring and evaluation. Contractors were paid even though the job had not been completed. While it looks good in financial statements that the municipalities have spent the R9,4 billion allocated to them on the MIG funding, it is more important to find out how it was spent and what the outcomes were.
There is an alarming number of municipalities currently, under administration where the Minister had to step in because officials could not even perform basic functions. Minister, where are the district municipalities which receive substantial funding in this equation? The district municipalities are supposed to provide capacity, assistance and oversight to municipalities. They ought to be working hard, but instead have done very little to assist the municipalities. The Minister had to step in and get involved. Some of the district municipalities have become nothing more than employment agencies for their officials, because they spend up to 70% of their budget on salaries.
On a recent oversight visit to Mpumalanga, we found provincial roads littered with potholes, endangering our lives. Many a time it was safer to drive on the shoulder of a road than on the road itself. In a beautiful province where we are trying to attract tourists, especially for the Fifa World Cup, this is a crying shame. Has anyone accounted for this?
Let's look at Mkhondo municipality, where the administrator informed us that there is complete institutional failure and very little capacity. There are two camps: That of the Mayor and that of the Speaker. Contractors were appointed and paid, but all one finds is unfinished roads and dug-up trenches. People cannot get out of their homes. The roads, especially the gravel ones, are filled with refuse so they cannot commute on them. Is this what MIG is meant for, Minister?
The project manager appointed to oversee this project has since left because of disciplinary action that was going to be instituted against him. Guess what happened? The same individual was appointed in the position of project manager at another municipality. Can they afford this kind of blatant mismanagement? Can they honestly say that cadre deployment works? I think not.
This trend continues in most municipalities. Service delivery is at crisis level. As soon as the problems surface, the responsible official resigns in order to avoid disciplinary action. They are then employed by another unsuspecting municipality where they continue their trail of destruction and corruption. Operation Clean Audit 2014 was launched in July 2009 in order to assist municipalities to achieve clean audits. Minister, it is not only municipalities that need to do so but also national and provincial departments - starting with the Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs.
The Minister's own department has to reverse its qualified audit and become an example of how things should be done before the big stick is waved at others. The Minister's own staff must become accountable and face the music for their shortcomings, especially considering that the department had a clean audit before.
Service delivery protests have rocked the country in the last year. Protests were also violent and destructive. Once again South Africans and ratepayers have been failed. The sad part is the protests could have been avoided in many instances. After all most of them were caused by the lack of housing and infrastructure.
Lack of housing, a provincial competency, is sadly used against councillors. It's councillors' houses that are being vandalised and burnt, but I have yet to see a provincial or national department coming to their rescue.
Housing should be with the locals, with the necessary budget and accreditation attached to it for transparency and accountability. Let the waiting list be displayed publicly at municipal offices, so that beneficiaries can see where they are on the list and don't have to pay bribes in order to get their homes.
Infrastructure costs are huge and this is where most of the mismanagement of funds and corruption is taking place. Corruption needs to be eradicated and we must stop at nothing to achieve this. The department must establish a register of black-listed operators and contractors.
Minister, I am sure you will agree that the Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Commission does not belong in this cluster, but rather with the Arts and Culture portfolio. We have made such requests in the past, but to no avail.
The mandate of the South African Local Government Association, Salga, is to be the voice of local government. They are also meant to support, represent and advise member municipalities. The latest wage negotiations have crippled service delivery in our towns and cannot be left unchallenged. Where are the rights of the ratepayers who have paid for services that they are not receiving?
How realistic are union demands for two years' back pay? Have the municipal budgets been considered? Most municipalities have already exceeded 30% of their budgets on salaries and wages and the latest demands will result in job losses and non-filling of vacant posts due to financial constraints. Why don't unions reprimand their members and control them, instead of allowing them to trash the streets? What about vandalism and damage to property? Year after year we hear that action will be taken against unruly strikers but the picture does not change. In the past the DA submitted a Private Member's Bill which proposed making unions accountable for damage caused by its members during strike action. However, the proposal was ignored.
By the end of March 2009 94% of the mandatory grant income -R129,8 million - was disbursed by the Local Government Sector Education and Training Authority, LGSETA. This is commendable. However, more than 50% of this grant was not used for training purposes by the municipalities as required. There has been no accountability with regard to grant spending. Surely LGSETA has the responsibility to monitor and report such dubious practices. While the Seta enjoys an unqualified report, the fund intended for training has been misspent by the municipalities.
The outstanding debt owed to municipalities by the provincial and national government amounts to R2,4 billion as of October 2009. This is crippling the cash flow and day-to-day running of municipalities and directly impacts on service delivery. Ministers must be personally accountable for such malpractices and instructed to settle such debt immediately. If these departments were individuals, they would have been blacklisted already and would not qualify for any further financing. Let us learn from best practice, Minister. After all, we have two on our doorstep: the City of Cape Town and the Western Cape.