House Chairperson, our Minister and Deputy Minister, hon members of the House, all protocol observed. In debating the Budget Vote, we are affirming that the ruling party in this Parliament is fulfilling the objective of the Freedom Charter, namely that the people shall govern to make things happen where they live.
We are faced with the reality that continues to confront our local government systems. However, we feel proud of the fact that over 80% of the programmes of our municipalities are positive. We, however, have backlogs that, as government, we need to confront. And there is, indeed, a programme that cuts across all the spheres of government which seeks to confront these challenges. We have observed from reports of the departments that not everything is gloomy, but more positive in terms of service delivery. We would like to commend the steps taken by the Minister in this regard.
The House should not forget that our democracy is 16 years old. This democracy, since its inception, has been confronting political economic exclusion that was left to us by a racially fragmented legacy of colonialism of a special type. In this regard, we call upon every one in our nation - our farms, villages, townships, isolated farmsteads, towns, cities, and our metros - to make local government everybody's business, as the Minister always echoes.
In that spirit, we would then strengthen this system to be progressive, efficient, effective, accountable and democratic. The select committee was indeed impressed when the report was tabled before it. Even at the level of protesting municipalities, the department does not leave any vacuum. The department immediately responds and engages because in this case communication is the weapon of engagement. Communication might not necessarily bring solutions on the spot, but it brings hope for the future.
The President has said that this is the year of action. How do we dramatise that action? We need to dramatise it by making sure that we don't waste time through political quarrels, whether at national, provincial or local level. We need to utilise time by implementing the programme that we promised our people. The implementation of the programme includes, amongst other things, telling the people when things will happen, if they can't happen now. That is important and that is what we mean by a society driven by the people.
We also base all that we are doing on the 10- and 15-year review, as well as the ANC's door-to-door campaigns which informed the election manifesto of 2009. When the Fourth Parliament was put in place, the Ministry for Co- operative Governance and Traditional Affairs immediately launched a programme to assess how the state of municipalities in the country was in 2009. That assessment revealed that some of the municipalities are dysfunctional and some of the ward committees are not working well.
Furthermore, the assessment revealed that there are political and administrative challenges; weak intergovernmental relations; and a serious lack of communication, notwithstanding that anything that is there or not there must be communicated. If communication wasn't lacking, some of the protests could have been stopped one way or another. However, you can't stop protests because they are part of the democratic element which the ANC introduced in this country, after 300 years of no democracy in our society.
This has baptised our Fourth Parliament during its inaugural processes. After that assessment, the Ministry called upon everyone who has the interests of local government at heart - everyone, from national, provincial and local government - to Beachwood on 21 and 22 October, where the assessment gave birth to what we call the local government turnaround strategy, LGTAS.
We would want to agree that the LGTAS built the framework that would change and is continuing to change the situation at local government level. We would want to call upon everyone that we need to learn and understand the turnaround strategy. However, we should not memorise it because we will need to apply it in different conditions. We must not memorise it like the little boy in the Deputy Minister's story because, for example, one would be confronted with a problem in Musina and want to talk about solutions that were applied in an ocean-related problem in Cape Town, even though Musina has no ocean.
The other element that the LGTAS moots is how we make sure that the communities are, indeed, engaged in monitoring. That will only happen if ward committees are strengthened. We are happy because there is, in the turnaround strategy, an element of reviewing and funding of the very same ward committee in order to strengthen democracy. This will ensure that the democratic space is not abused by those who are nostalgic about the past. The people who are nostalgic about the past will still want to cling to their racially beneficial programme, and will always go to the communities to say the government is not delivering. Certainly, when the government is not delivering, there is always an answer. Therefore, the answer will be given to the people if there is an intersphere engagement.
The select committee made several oversight visits and we would like to emphasise some of the points so that the department should make a follow- up. In Mpumalanga, the select committee went to Mkhondo municipality, which is one of the municipalities that was protesting. We found that the people are highly charged and their major demand was a demand which confirms what the Deputy Minister said about some of the protests being legitimate and some complex to understand. Their major demand was the removal of the councillors. They also told us that if we don't remove the councillors we are also not going back to Cape Town. You could understand that there is something deeper that we need to look into in our democracy.
However, the Minister responded quickly by visiting those municipalities and communities. As we are talking, the situation is stabilised. People are constitutionally and politically engaging on how to resolve that because the municipalities have been placed under section 139. We would like to commend the Minister. However, we did report on how the situation is, as we are speaking, in Mkhondo municipality.
Hon Matila gave an example of Nala Local Municipality, which we want to confirm. We also want to confirm that the LGTAS is working. There - we have been told by the MEC - the officials who are misusing public funds are facing the law. This simply means that the element of the LGTAS is indeed turning the situation around in the country, and we commend the Minister for those corrective measures.
Nokeng tsa Taemane in Gauteng has also been placed under section 139, and we would also like to commend the manner in which the MEC applied section 139. Because it was about finances he - I forgot whether it's he or she - specifically crafted or created a specific financial recovery plan which is working miracles as we speak. The municipality is now getting back to normal. We would like to urge other municipalities to go and see how that specific financial recovery plan was implemented.
With regard to Limpopo, of course, everyone knows that there was a Moutse problem. If the department had not engaged with the people, we would have had a permanent problem. Currently, the people in Moutse in Limpopo have an understanding of how to take the process forward. That is what we call responsive and accountable government, something which needs to prevail in our government.
Recently, we met with the hon MEC from the Eastern Cape - I'm not sure whether he is still around. The Sundays River Valley Local Municipality has been placed under section 139, for the second time. The first instance was in 2006, and this is the second. When we assess the problem, we realise that it's a political problem because the council could not meet for the whole year. What would you take out of that? In this regard, we were a bit firm, as a select committee. We told the MEC that he needs to improve and strengthen provincial monitoring.
In the Western Cape - where we are at present - we got a report from the MEC for local government in this province ... [Interjections.] That one is a messenger, not an MEC. [Interjections.] The House is saying I must get two minutes more.
Let me conclude by alluding to a situation found in the Western Cape. The department confirmed this. I visited my relatives in Khayelitsha and when I wanted to relieve myself, they showed me a hole without walls. [Interjections.] I asked: "What is this thing?" The reply was: "This is a toilet that we have been given by our municipality." I said to them: "The national government has a policy of free basic services, why is this municipality undermining that policy?" We would like the Ministry to further engage in these processes. Amen. [Applause.]