Thank you, Chairperson. Colleagues, since 1994 South Africa has been characterised by enormous change, but I think it's true to say that this has been more pronounced in respect of local government than anything.
Now, constitutionally, if you look at Chapter 3, we have three spheres and they all enjoy equal status, though of course different powers and functions, but if you compare the establishment of local government to that of the provinces or the national government, you'd have to agree that this process has been far more challenging. This has a direct bearing on how you measure progress in local government and its achievements.
Now you can measure progress by the roll-out of water or the roll-out of electricity, but I don't want to refer to those statistics today, but rather look at a few broader considerations.
First, I think we need to recognise that there are enormous differences between the 283 municipalities in our country, and it hardly seems appropriate to discuss them in the same breath. Six of those 283 comprise the six metros. They generate more than half of our GDP. They employ tens of thousands of people each. Their budgets are larger than those of most provinces. In contrast to that, you've got a plethora of very small municipalities, the smallest of which are barely blips on the radar screen. They have miniscule budgets, they are totally reliant on national funding, and in a sense talking about progress there and across the spheres as a whole becomes quite difficult. However, we would conclude in this respect that there has been progress all round, but far more needs to be done in respect of those smaller municipalities which are really not necessarily very viable now, but need to be made viable over time.
Secondly, we need to look at the whole institutionalisation of the local government sphere. Let's say that it is bedded down now, and this bedding down is an achievement rather than the converse. It could have been construed as converse considering it has taken many years to get to where we are now, but the reason we think this is progress and is an achievement is because, if you look at this transformation process since 1994, it's been extremely disruptive, politically for the local role-players, but especially administratively, and this has been highly problematic in respect of delivery for local government.
We are now in the last of our three phases - the pre-interim, the interim, and the final phase - and we have subcategories even within these. But I think it is fair to say that this bedding down is finished now and hopefully things will be far smoother in future.
Thirdly, I think we need to recognise that although service delivery has been very patchy, sometimes good and sometimes, as these protests last year showed us, rather poor, the general trend is one of improving performance. The single largest constraint on delivery has certainly not been money, but probably human capacity, and I think this is also improving now.
Project Consolidate is playing it's part, yes, but in addition to this I think it's true to say that there is a growing cohort of experienced local politicians and local administrators who are able to keep the ball on the ground, and have an institutional memory and are able to concentrate on good governance rather than establishment matters, which have preoccupied them for so long.
Having said that, there's obviously still enormous scope for improvement, and elimination of corruption is one issue, as is improvements in financial management. These are both key concerns, and whilst we as a House shouldn't expect miracles, we should demand and we should expect steady improvement all round and substantially greater compliance with good governance norms.
And finally, I think it's true to say that it's unfortunate that local government has been left to its own devices for far too long, meaning that the level of support required from both the national and the provincial governments, in particular, over much of the first decade was less than desirable, given the needs of local government, and this impacted negatively on the achievements and progress in this sphere.
Fortunately, again, this appears to be changing and there are many signs of positive outcomes in respect of support, and this again should represent further acceleration in the future. In this regard, too, it is significant that the department has repositioned itself and its strategic focus now is far more appropriate to the needs of local government than it has been in the past, when its preoccupation was policy-centred rather than delivery- centred. So all round we think there is some scope to say that there has indeed been progress in local government, although of course much more can be done. Thank you.