Hon Deputy Minister, I think I like what you say about the Back to Basics especially one of its pillars of institutional development. Is there any programme of government to focus specifically at rural municipalities to ensure that we strengthen them and therefore the skills and expertise are there at municipal level are retained especially for the rural local municipalities?
The DEPUTY MINISTER OF COOPERATIVE GOVERNANCE AND TRADITIONAL
AFFAIRS: Hon Dodovu, I prefaced the reply to the question by talking to the District Development Model, particularly because it is intended through the District Development Model that we would do two primary things. The first one is to create the mechanism of integrated government planning, budgeting and execution of
programmes. So we are looking at it within the context of it being delivery within the geographic space, which is the district.
The second one relates to the support being provided to the local government. Whoever identified that many of the municipalities particularly the rural municipalities do not have the institutional capacity or resources to be able to recruit appropriately to ensure that they are able to execute the executive obligations.
So, through the District Development Model we would also be building the capacity that would be needed to support the local governments to ensure that they are able to implement their work. Depending on the capacity that exists in the districts we would create almost a shed service for the respective districts that can be accessed by the local governments and the district municipalities in terms of their ability to implement projects. That capacity would range from financial management, project management, town planning engineering services and other services that are so needed in particular in our poorer district municipal areas. Thank you very much.
Question 118:
The DEPUTY MINISTER OF CO-OPERATIVE GOVERNANCE AND TRADITIONAL
AFFAIRS (Mr M Tau): Hon House Chairperson and hon members, section
173 of the Municipal Finance Act provides that the accounting officer of a municipality is guilty of an offence if he or she deliberately or in a grossly negligent way fails to, amongst other things, take reasonable steps to implement the municipality's supply management chain management policy; take all reasonable steps to prevent unauthorised irregular or fruitless and wasteful expenditure; and take reasonable steps to prevent corruptive practices.
Section 57(a) of the Municipal Systems Act, as amended in 2011, empowered the Minister of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Cogta, to establish a record of staff dismissed with serious misconducts such as fraud, corruption, financial misconduct and bridge of the code of conduct for municipal staff. As of 9 March 2019 this database had 290 municipal employees dismissed for financial misconduct, fraud and corruption.
Since 9 March 2019, the 2011 Municipal Systems Amendment Act together with the provisions of section 57(a) have been declared invalid by the Constitutional Court resulting in, inter alia, legal uncertainty regarding the enforcement of the latter provisions.
In order to provide guidance and to ensure that municipalities continue to comply with the Municipal Systems Act and all amendments made prior to the 2011 amendment Act, the department will be issuing a circular to all provinces and municipalities outlining the provisions of the Municipal Systems Act that are not affected by the invalidity of the 2011 amendment Act.
The performance of senior managers is dealt with in terms of the performance management regulations of 2006. The objective of these regulations is to ensure that all senior managers of a municipality participate in the overall performance management of the municipality in order to maximise the ability of the municipality as a whole to achieve its objectives and improve the quality of life to its communities.
Chapter 3 of the disciplinary regulations for senior managers provides procedures for dealing with substandard or poor performance by senior managers that may lead to dismissals by the municipality. Thank you very much.