Honourable Speaker, the Human Resource Development Council provides an important platform that fosters collaboration on building the necessary skills required for economic growth, development and service delivery.
It is seized with the responsibility of ensuring that the appropriate foundation is established for South Africa's objective of building a capable and developmental state.
For a developmental state to succeed, the overall capacity of the state to intervene, direct and achieve desired outcomes is dependent on the existence of a public service that is capable, professional and committed.
To address performance gaps in a number of service delivery areas, the public sector needs to take a national long-term perspective on public service training and capacity building, including the selection and placement of appropriately skilled individuals in the right positions.
Performance deficiencies are a consequence of a mismatch between job requirements and competencies of incumbents, resulting in government's inability to deliver the desired services and lead to the achievement of expected developmental outcomes.
For local government to function optimally, the appropriate selection and placement of skilled individuals in key positions is critical to ensure that necessary capacities exist to drive and champion
development and service delivery at all levels of our government.
For its part, the Human Resource Development Council is tasked with identifying critical skills required in our country across all sectors, including skills required to improve the quality of service within municipalities. This is intended to ensure that there is a clear response in terms of building a pipeline of relevant skills required to propel growth and development.
Our assessment of local government performance points to some areas of concern resulting from inappropriate placement of individuals whose skills are not aligned with core competencies required for the jobs that they are doing.
The audit outcomes by the Auditor-General have, in a way, highlighted some critical areas of intervention to improve the performance of our municipalities. Where these performance challenges have been identified, it is imperative to provide targeted programmes to enhance
skills with a view of improving the performance of our municipalities.
Some of the areas that require urgent improvement include leadership capacity, managerial competence, technical and project execution, as well as financial management skills. Through the Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs, South African Local Government Association, Salga, and National Treasury, a number of training and capacity building programmes are implemented as part and parcel of integrated support to municipalities.
These programmes include: Municipal finance development, and municipal executive development in partnership with selected universities; technical project management and engineering skills to enhance project execution and delivery, especially infrastructure projects; financial management and governance; and leadership and management programmes implemented through the National School of Government.
These interventions are complemented by focused recruitment and selection of competent managers in critical senior positions. The deployment of expert technical teams across a range of municipal disciplines is another important intervention to effect skills transfer programmes that benefit municipal officials.
Where skills audits have been undertaken, individuals are placed appropriately based on qualifications, skills and experience. The Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs champions programmes such as Revenue Enhancement, Municipal Competency Regulations, Municipal Performance and Financial Monitoring and many others.
The Inter-Ministerial Committee on Service Delivery at District Level will continue to engage with the Human Resource Development Council to identify and co-ordinate intervention measures to provide required skills to improve the performance of our municipalities.
With regard to the second part of the main question, it is important to point out that matters raised herein fall outside the defined scope of the Inter-Ministerial
Committee on Service Delivery at district level. Thank you, Madam Speaker. [Applause.]