Chairperson, last year the DA supported this Vote, believing that the new Minister and Deputy Minister would ensure that the department's budget would help to turn around the poor service delivery experienced at the majority of municipalities.
Unfortunately, the general state of municipalities and service delivery are now worse with more than 50 major protests taking place all over the country since the national elections. Twenty-four municipalities are currently under administration and many others are in distress. The vacancy rates at municipalities are not coming down.
Nepotism is rife and incompetent connected cadres are appointed. Exorbitant packages are paid to top officials, resulting in salaries comprising more than 50% of the total expenditure of municipalities.
Skuld aan munisipaliteite, des ondanks gedeeltelike afskrywing, het toegeneem tot R57 miljard. Goedkoop politiekery om stemme te koop, veroorsaak dat die ANC-beheerde rade nie skuld invorder of streng kredietbeheer toepas nie, en veral nie voor verkiesings nie.
Die weerhouding van betaling deur enige een is onwettig en dit is jammer dat die Minister die rassekaart speel deur slegs op wit weerhouding te konsentreer. Die Minister en sy departement het ook nie daarin geslaag om nasionale en provinsionale departmente te kry om hul munisipale rekeninge af te los nie. (Translation of Afrikaans paragraphs follows.)
[Municipal debts, despite partial write-off, has increased to R57 billion. Cheap politicking to buy votes gives rise to the fact that ANC-led councils are not collecting debts or enforcing strict credit control measures, especially not prior to elections.
It is illegal for anyone to withhold payment and it is a pity that the Minister is playing the race card by only focusing on whites withholding payments. The Minister and his department also failed in getting national and provincial departments to settle their municipal accounts.]
It became glaringly obvious in recent visits to municipalities by the oversight committees of Parliament that a number of them are misusing the municipal infrastructure grant allocated by this department - and your responsibility - for daily running costs of the municipality.
With the poor state of local government and a department, which according to the Auditor-General's report, had two fraudulent matters amounting to R37,6 million to deal with and which, according to Auditor-General's report, also lacks the evidence to prove its actual performance in terms of free basic service infrastructure and free basic co-ordination, the DA cannot support this Vote. [Applause.]