By Thabo Mokgola

DEPUTY President Jacob Zuma says the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) needs a critical review of its oversight role and that local government was positioned as a key site for service delivery and as a catalyst for local economic development in the next decade.

The Deputy President today addressed the NCOP in Cape Town on the "challenges facing the NCOP, Provincial Legislatures and South African Local Government Association in promoting cooperative governance and inter-governmental relations".

"As the custodian of intergovernmental relations and cooperative governance, the NCOP needs to critically review the current oversight role that it is playing, against the interest of ensuring that the state is providing an effective, integrated and sustainable development to poor, underdeveloped and marginalised communities," he said.

He said although intergovernmental relations were primarily an executive function; legislatures had an important intergovernmental role to play. Legislatures were responsible for the formal adoption of laws that conferred powers on the executive and administration, and thus for overseeing their implementation, he explained.

Government stepped up its efforts to ensure that a best model of intergovernmental relations was in place as more focus was now on accelerating and improving service delivery throughout the country.

The proposed Intergovernmental Relations Framework Bill was put on the spotlight a week ago at an extended Cabinet workshop in Pretoria. The Bill provides the possibility for the state to function more as an integrated, coherent and cohesive unit.

Zuma said local government was positioned as a key site for service delivery and was a catalyst for local economic development in the next decade. This should put a lot of pressure to bear on the South African Local Government Association (SALGA), to improve on the manner in which municipalities had been conducting their business.

"During the massive door-to-door campaign conducted during the elections, the majority of households complained about poor municipal service delivery which included inferior water and electricity service provision and poor customer care, which included inaccurate billing systems," said the Deputy President.

"We can do all we can to make municipalities successful financially, but if we do not get the basic customer care or Batho Pele issues right, ordinary citizens will continue to say the local government sphere is failing them," he said.

He explained that the NCOP could be described as the institutionalisation of the principles of co-operative governance at national legislative level, since it brought the national, provincial and local government spheres into a single structure.

It therefore provided a mechanism for improving interaction and co-operation between governmental spheres, and to ensuring the responsiveness of national government to provincial and local government matters, he said.

The Deputy President's remarks are in line with the NCOP strategic plan for the next five years, the Vision 2009, unveiled last Wednesday.

The NCOP last week said it would devote much effort over the next five years to monitor the extent and pace in which government policies were implemented.

NCOP chairperson Joyce Kgoali said the council's vision in this term also encompassed ensuring that set deadlines were met as directed by President Thabo Mbeki in the State of the Nation Address.

Mbeki last month highlighted that government's programme for this third democratic term would emphasise accelerated service delivery to build a better country and improve the lives of all South Africans.

"We have set a time frame of three years to reach the 70 percent [delivery] target. In 2004 we must devote at least 30 percent of time doing oversight work, at least 50 percent in 2005 and (we) must reach the 70 percent target by 2006," said Ms Kgoali.
Source: BuaNews