State of Eastern Cape Municipalities: Department and SALGA briefings

She said that ward committees and ward based planning were important for integrated and co-ordinated service delivery. South Africa had seen a number of demonstration or marches in the recent past. The truth was that some of the people did not even know of what was happening in their area. One might find that there was a new road and a new school in their ward. Such people did not know about the infrastructure only because they were not in their area. This could be attributed to the lack of collective planning that would set priorities for the entire ward. The re-determination of wards had helped reduce very big wards to more manageable wards.

Discussion

Mr Shiceka thanked the presenters for a thorough presentation. He said that the government had inherited the apartheid system and had to some extent continued with it without turning the ship. The information presented enable one to see that there were some imbalances. There was a need to look at how municipalities could broaden their tax base. The assumption at national level was that municipalities generated their own revenue and the presentation had changed the assumption. Parliament did not have any data on the prevailing on the ground. Lack of data created monitoring problems because one could not compare the situation under different periods. He said that the Commissioner of Police, Mr J Selebi, could get any information about any police station in the country by just pressing a button. The province was supposed to have the necessary information in its computers.

He said that the issue of Presidential Nodes had been raised before with the Department. The Department and affected municipalities should appear before the Committee to talk about the issue. The grading or catergorisation of municipalities should be looked at. The Committee should engage the Department so that it could have a better understanding of the process.

The Chairperson said that the late transfer of projects by DWAF was a cause for concern. DWAF should be invited to come and brief the Committee on the transfer of projects. Project Consolidate was very popular and symbolised that government was doing something about municipalities. The Committee should find a way of addressing problems relating to the project.

He noted that some of the infrastructure in the province was very old. The City of Tshwane had dealt with a problem better. There was a company based in Cape Town that conducted investigation on infrastructure and also designed systems to manage the infrastructure. The system could tell a person the size of the pipes that would be required in ten years’ time based on the estimated population growth. It could also point the exact area wherein a pipe had burst. It would be helpful for the province to meet with the company.

The Chairperson asked what was the level of debt and what was the income and expenditure of each municipality. He also asked what were the backlogs in water, sanitation and roads in each municipality and how much it would cost of addressing them. The Department should come and address the Committee on these questions at a future date. The Development Bank of South Africa was prepared to help municipalities in the Eastern Cape. A follow up meeting should be held with the Bank in this regard.

Mr D Worth (DA) (Free State) said that a number of municipalities were not financially viable. He asked how many municipalities were doing creative accounting. The regional services for district council levies were to be phased out. He asked how the District Councils would survive if the levies were phased out. He also asked how migration from the province was affecting planning in the province.

The MEC replied that one could not say if migration affected the planning of service delivery. Most of the staff was concentrated at actual service delivery points and there were few people who collected information about people and their movement. The question was how to generate information and there were gaps in this regard.

Mr J Le Roux (DA) (Eastern Cape) agreed that there was a need for a follow up with the Department. Most municipalities had not submitted their financial statements or tabled their audit report before their Councils. He asked what the Department was doing to or with the responsible officials in order to address the issue. It seemed like nothing was being contemplated. Some infrastructure dated back to apartheid years. The job of the manager was to see what was happening in the municipality. There was no point in continuously blaming the homeland and apartheid systems for all problems if managers were not doing their jobs. It was very rich for the government to pay them huge salaries and also train them at the same time. They were the very people who should have been training their staff.

The MEC replied that there were municipal managers who were doing exactly what was expected from them. The problem was that some municipalities had backlogs that dated to eight years ago. A person had to deal with issues that arose eight years ago as well as new issues. A lot depended on the kind of support that was offered to municipal managers. The situation was compounded by lack of supporting documentation.

Mr T Manyosi (ANC) (Eastern Cape) said that a lot of work had been done in the province. A big part of the budget went to the payment of salaries. He asked what effect this had on the budget as a whole and service delivery. It seemed that debt collection was a problem. He asked if there was a possibility of deducting the monies owed by various Departments to municipalities from their annual allocations. Rural areas composed a very large part of the Eastern Cape province and those areas had no infrastructure. Free basic service could best be delivered in areas that had infrastructure. He asked how the lack of infrastructure was affecting the delivery of free basic services.

Mr Madyaka replied that all Departments were prepared to settle their debts. At times some Departments had queried certain amounts. There might not be arrears by next year.

Mr L Moseki (ANC) (North West) said that the Department was facing as problem of lack of response to requests for information by municipalities. He asked how the Department was doing to ensure that municipalities responded to its requests. He noted that revenue collection was a problem and asked if the systems were capable of addressing the challenges. Was the province well positioned to deal with challenges? He also asked if the programmes put in place to address capacity problems added any value. He said that he was impressed by the Mpumalanga model of governance. It might be helpful for the Eastern Cape province to look at it. He asked if service providers who were contracted by municipalities ever transferred skills to them.

The MEC agreed that there was a need to do more in terms of revenue collection. There was a difference between projected and collected revenues.

Mr Madyaka agreed that revenue collection was a challenge. Most municipalities did not have computers to assist them in the billing process. A huge amount of money had been injected towards building better capacity. With regard to governance, he said that the Eastern Cape had a forum for District Municipalities where mayors met regularly to discuss governance issues. Municipal managers also formed part of the forum. There was a need for a forum for all managers across the province. There was a structure that had been initiated for mayors across the province

Ms F Nyanda (ANC) (Mpumalanga) noted a number of municipalities had not submitted annual financial statement to the AG. She asked what were the reasons for this. She also asked what were the reasons for the disclaimer audit opinions given to 24 municipalities.

Ms Capa replied that the AG’s office did not have many officials at regional level. The officials were slow to respond to queries from municipalities relating to the audit reports. They would normally say that they were busy doing audits of various Departments and had no capacity to attend to queries from municipalities. In some instances mayors had to give answers relating to issues that had happened when they were not yet in office. For instance, there was a query in OR Tambo relating to a Madondile taxi rank in UMbashe. UMbashe was now under Amathole District municipality. It was discovered that only R5000 had been budgeted for marking marks in the taxi rank. The query from the AG had given an impression that a taxi rank had not been built. Municipalities also needed support when it came to managing financial statements. Most statements lacked supporting documents. The issue of capacity in dealing with financial statements was very important. This had been in Project Consolidate. The Municipal Finance Management Act provided that the Mayor should receive monthly financial statements. This required capacity in the Mayor’s office because a politician would not intelligent enough to deal with financial statements. One had to scrutinize the statements together with the budget implementation plan and Integrated Development Plans. A unit to deal with this was required in the Mayor’s office. Most statements, including bills to residents, had clearly indicated to inability to deal with financial statements.

She said that the Eastern Cape province was in the process of establishing Municipal Support Unit (MSU). It had been discovered that municipalities were entities or institutions in terms of the Constitution. One could not just walk into a municipality. One had to be able to communicate in a manner that he or she would be acceptable in a municipality. The MSU would have all the expertise required in every municipalities. The President had been informed that OR Tambo had one Zambian engineer. One might say that the engineer had remained there because he was not a South African. What made the situation worse that that the engineer was at the present moment on sick leave. Both OR Tambo and Alfred Nzo municipalities had tried to recruit an engineer who would serve both municipalities but could not find one. Even people who were born in the municipalities who rather prefer to go and work elsewhere. Project Consolidate should bring in seven engineers to OR Tambo municipality who would not be allocated to any particular municipality because they might not like the conditions in the municipality and decide to leave. They would be deployed throughout the District municipality when necessary.

Ms Capa said that SALGA was looking at ensuring that bigger municipalities had twining arrangements with rural municipalities. Johannesburg City was already waiting for a name of a municipality in Eastern Cape that would like to twin with them. OR Tambo was already twining with Cape Town City around financial management and disaster management. OR Tambo could not manage disaster because it was a little bit of a disaster itself. The information technology problem was big and most municipalities could not use the systems that were in place.

She said that co-ordination integration of service delivery was key to basic service. For instance, one would find that a municipality had its own data on indigent people. This did not mean that the very same people also appeared on the database of the Departments of Social Development or Education. A person who was receiving free basic water and electricity could still not be receiving a grant from Social Development because Social Development did not know that the person was receiving free services. One would also find that the Department of Education was not exempting those people from paying school fees.

A member said that three municipalities had Plenary Executives and no ward committees. He asked if there were any other mechanisms of interacting with the people in the municipalities. The Nelson Mandela municipality had 54 wards but seemed to have no ward committees. He asked the wards were still in the process of establishing the committees.

Mr Madyaka said he could not say how municipalities communicated with the people in places were there were no wards. The Department did not get proper information regarding the Nelson Mandela municipality.

Mr Kwelita said that some municipalities had formulated forums for communication. The problem was that they were not legislated forums. This was gap a that the province would have to address.

Ms Capa replied that municipalities that did not have Ward Committees were usually small municipalities wherein people knew each other well. Communication was informal because it did not involve the ward councillor.

Kgoshi L Mokoena (ANC) (Limpopo) said that it was rare for municipalities to admit that they were struggling and therefore in need of support. He thanked the MEC for the presentation. He noted that a large part of the budget went to the payment of salaries. A large part of the budget went to two municipalities. He asked how the Department was working towards equalizing the situation. The lack of revenue collection mechanism was a problem because it forced municipalities to resources that were supposed to go towards service delivery for other purposes. He asked who was to blame for the non-submission of financial statements and audit reports. Some municipalities had Chief Financial Officers who were serving in acting capacities. Some of those people did not take their responsibilities serious merely because they were not permanent in the positions. Some provinces had complained about the re-determination of boundaries by the Demarcation Board. He asked if the province also had the same problem.

The MEC replied that there was work that municipalities and the provincial government were not doing. There were no institutions that assessed demarcation and made proposals in between the elections. The tendency was to respond only after the Board had released its proposals. Much focus was devoted to changing statistics without looking at the implications of changing statistics. A lot of work should be done in between elections. In some cases there was a need of the concurrence of the affected municipalities and the MEC of the province. There were problems when it came to demarcation. The Eastern Cape did not have traditional authority boundaries that would help eliminate the need of dividing areas of traditional authorities into various components. The development of such boundaries could help solve some problems. The province could then tell the Board to consider the boundaries when doing its demarcations.

With regard to salaries, Mr Madyaka replied that one had to look at a whole range of factors. Some municipalities had not progressed beyond the establishment point. All staff that formed part of municipalities that were amalgamating were still in the payrolls and this increased the amount spent on salaries in a particular municipality. Poaching of staff was a major problem. Municipalities had to look at ways of retaining their staff and one way of doing this was to offer them high salaries.

The Chairperson said that the Committee, together with the Select Committee on Finance, should make a follow up regarding the capacity of the AG’s office and audit reports. Parastatals should be included in the meetings of intergovernmental relations structures. The issue of IDP review should be dealt with a provincial level. It seemed that municipalities were not playing much role in terms of the demarcation of wards. Some IDPs in the province were not realistic and did not reflect how ideas would take shape on the ground. The MEC would be invited to come and explain the province’s programme on dealing with cross border municipalities.

Kgoshi Mokoena said that Ms Capa should elaborate on what she meant by saying that one could not just go and enter into a municipality.

Mr Kwelita said that municipalities were a sphere of government. One could not just move into a municipality if there was a problem. There was a need to work with them in such a way that they would support the intervention. Municipalities could resist the intervention and it would be difficult to enforce it. This was especially the case in cases where people did not what to be exposed.

Ms Capa agreed that municipalities were a sphere of government. Some local municipalities felt that assistance could only come if they had requested it despite signs that there were problems. Legislation that established local government recognized them as legal entities that had to be respected. In some cases a municipality had to pass a resolution before something could be done. A municipality could decide not to pass the necessary resolution so as to frustrate the whole process.

The meeting was adjourned.