Deputy Speaker, it is time to face reality. A few years ago I stood at this podium and accused the then Minister of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Pravin Gordhan, of fiddling while our country burned.
I pointed out that our municipalities were in complete disarray, and that Minister Gordhan's Back to Basics programme had no tangible outcomes. I advised him that amalgamating dysfunctional municipalities was a recipe for disaster - a prophecy that has been borne out since the 2016 Local Government Elections, and which even the Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs, COGTA, admits was a mistake.
The sad truth is that South Africa's municipalities are failing. They are crumbling under the mismanagement of the ANC. They are, by and large, bloated, inefficient and wasteful. There is a complete lack of oversight, support or intervention from the national or provincial departments.
We have been waiting for the Intergovernmental Monitoring, Support and Interventions Bill since at least 2013. It has been promised in budget speeches and in departmental annual performance plans and it shows no sign of being tabled any time soon.
Where interventions do take place, they are inadequate and have no clear outcomes. As a result, the municipalities frequently fall back into the same situation a few short months later. Honestly, when there is no political will to intervene and no real provincial or national oversight being conducted, is it any wonder that we have scandals like VBS scamming municipalities out of billions of rands? Is it any wonder that we have mayors like Florence Radzilani, when they know that any
misconduct or crime is more likely to get them sent to Parliament than to prison?
Just ask the hon Zukisa Faku, who despite a court finding her guilty of fraud against Buffalo City Municipality in March 2016 sits in this House - so much for the ANC being a party that fights against corruption.
We have municipalities like Makana, where the dams have run dry and the pumps lack the capacity to bring water from available sources because they haven't been maintained or upgraded for many years. In Riebeek East, millions were spent on digging and equipping boreholes that have never been connected to the supply reservoir, because there are no pipes.
Maybe we should consider Enoch Mgijima, where the entire municipal fleet was auctioned off to settle outstanding debts; or Ethekwini, which wants to use ratepayer funds to pay for an album by the crooner from Nkandla?
We have seen municipalities under threat of cut-offs from ESKOM, not from load-shedding, but because they are
unable to pay their bills to the power utility. Neither ESKOM nor SALGA seem willing to budge from entrenched positions.
The Inter-Ministerial Task Team appointed to chart a way out of the mess has presented exactly zero tangible solutions to the problem, despite being on the job since 2014. In fact, Minister Mkhize, you promised to present recommendations in January this year, but so far, nothing.
Now contrast all this with DA governed municipalities and the DA-led Western Cape. The DA took over Kouga municipality in August 2016, and since then has made significant strides in ensuring clean governance, enhancing revenue to the point that the municipality now has cash on hand in excess of R150 million, and implementing emergency measures to ensure that the drought does not affect its residents adversely. It has handed over hundreds of title deeds that sat in a storeroom under the previous ANC administration. It is a municipality that takes service delivery seriously.
In Thabazimbi, the DA started off their first day in office with the sheriff coming in and taking away all their equipment and their fleet to settle debts run up by the previous ANC administration. Within two weeks, the DA leadership had ensured that the offices were operational and had furniture and equipment.
They had put in place emergency arrangements to enable the running of essential services. For the first time in seven years billings and valuations were rectified and that has helped stabilise the municipality's finances. There is still a long way to go, but the residents of Thabazimbi will agree that they are better off now than they were under the ANC.
In Modimolle-Mookgophong, DA Mayor Marlene van Staden has been begging since late 2016 for National Treasury to conduct a forensic audit into the finances at that municipality. It took nearly two years for the MEC in Limpopo to agree to such an audit - something the ANC and EFF were bitterly opposed to.
That audit was concluded in October last year and handed to National Treasury. We still await the report, but it is clear that the ANC and EFF are seeking to cover up corruption and a looting spree in that municipality.
Maybe we should talk about Tshwane which the ANC left
R2 billion in debt, and which now has R2,1 billion in its accounts and a positive credit rating. Or the City of Johannesburg, where Mayor Herman Mashaba has uncovered R18 billion in corruption, where more than three 3 500 cases are being investigated and 700 arrests have been made thus far.
Continuous oversight and a hands-on provincial government in the Western Cape have ensured that the province has the highest number of clean municipal audits in the country at 83%. It is the top province in terms of good governance and has been for the last 6 years in terms of the Presidency's Performance Management Assessment Tool.
You see, this is the difference: Where the DA governs, there is oversight and accountability. There is action, not words. There is delivery and not false promises. All
of which brings me back to the Local Government Municipal Structures Amendment Bill we have before us today.
Make no mistake, this Bill does make some positive changes like establishing and empowering Municipal Public Accounts Committees, and clarifying the composition of Executive Committees - which have long been abused by the ANC, who seem to think that they can determine who other parties' representatives on those committees should be.
It is for these reasons that the DA will support this Bill. But it is little more than fiddling while Rome burns. It is fiddling around the edges of the massive systemic failure of local government.
Neither Minister Mkhize nor his predecessors, Pravin Gordhan and our very own weekend special, Des van Rooyen, have addressed the financial and governance failures of local government. Minister Mkhize's solution is to send them engineers rather than accountants. They have not addressed the criminal mismanagement of municipalities; instead, the ANC sends the perpetrators to Parliament.
It's not just the BOSASA and VBS accused - it's the tainted people like "Mr Cash", hon Philly Mapulane, who allegedly made millions through graft while Municipal Manager of Madibeng. It's people like these who have turned local government into personal piggy banks, and they are the swine with their snouts in the trough.
So, while we support this legislation, because it does the right things, we believe it has not gone far enough. The time has come for change; change that delivers for all South Africans; change that cleans up the mess left behind by the ANC; change that brings about the good governance and service delivery of the DA. Because where the DA governs, we govern better than any other party in South Africa. On 8 May, vote DA and help us build one South Africa for All. Thank you. [Applause.]