Madam Deputy Speaker, the first thing that you must talk about, bab' uMawawa, is that in many municipalities there are no technical people, particularly engineers. [Interjections.]
Now we have identified the problems that are being experienced. What has happened is that we have agreed that, for expenditure to happen, we have to support and assist municipalities in the deployment of engineers so that things can get done. That is the first thing.
The second thing that we are clear about is that it will take a long time for some municipalities to develop capacity. That is why we want to assist at a national level through the establishment of a special purpose vehicle to deliver service at that level. We know that it is a short-term measure. In the long term, those municipalities must acquire the capacity to do their work.
We believe that this view has been canvassed with the municipalities and with provinces. There is no interference whatsoever in that.
The functions and tasks of district municipalities include water and sanitation. District municipalities have never had the capacity to assist municipalities on the ground because the things that are being done there are not their functions. Therefore, this area that you are talking about is where we saw a gap. We think that we must assist so that there is not talk about underexpenditure of the municipal infrastructure grant all the time. Thank you.