By Shaun Benton

Cape Town – Weak institutional capacity and inadequate systems of accountability in the local government sphere are two deficiencies “desperately in need of urgent attention”, Sydney Mufamadi said in the National Assembly on 24 May.

As a result, Project Consolidate interventions are being scaled up and intensified.

Mufamadi, delivering his department's budget speech, said institutional capacity and systems of accountability were identified as key areas for improvement following a study of local government carried out in 2004 and comprehensive assessment last year.

The minister's admission comes in the wake also of a series of izimbizo undertaken by the presidency and other national government departments last year, when 106 municipalities across the country's nine provinces were visited last year.

But the results from Project Consolidate interventions, especially the deployment of dedicated teams of service delivery facilitators, are being felt already.

Mufamadi cited examples of increased electrification in municipalities and an increase in municipal collections of payment for services.

By last month 112 experts in their respective fields - engineering, project management, financial management and town planning - along with 18 graduates and 80 engineering students were mobilised in 69 of the more than 100 municipalities identified for immediate support.

And under a Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) project, 144 experts and 30 young graduates are being deployed to priority municipalities over the next three years, with the majority to be by December 2006.

The minister thanked the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry, the Local Government Seta (Sector Education and Training Authority), the Engineering Council of South Africa, the Afrikaanse Handels Instituut, National Treasury, the South African Black Technical Careers Organisation, the South African Association of Civil Engineers, the Institute of Municipal Finance Officers and Britain's Department for International Development.

The minister described this co-operation between various parties inside and outside government as a “milestone development” that represented “an important material sign of what could be achieved through a co-operative system of governance”.

And the cross-boundary municipalities where the country has seen intense protests resulting from residents' fears over service delivery after being moved into a single province will receive “priority attention” from this intensified support.

It was within this context, said the minister, that “steps were taken to ensure that none of our municipalities remain stuck in the unpromising corner where poor performance and the attendant problem of service delivery backlogs were the order of the day”.

But as service delivery by local municipalities improved – the rate of spending on municipal infrastructure had already increased to 72 per cent - the minister warned of a scenario developing of a “pathology of local government reliance” on outside support.

Describing such a development as “ghastly”, Mufamadi told MPs that the “political-strategic capacity” of municipalities needs to be strengthened.

This will be done by technical means, through the development of generic pro forma performance agreements and contracts for senior municipal managers along with a councillor induction programme for the country's over 9 000 newly-elected councillors.

“This will place municipalities in a position to have performance agreements and contracts with senior managers, that are linked to the political mandate of elected representatives,” said Mufamadi.

“Ultimately, this initiative will help us put in place, one of the crucial elements of sustainability,” said the minister.

The Department of Provincial and Local Government will be publishing the municipal Performance Management regulations for public comment tomorrow.

Along with these tailored performance agreements, the remuneration of councillors is to be subsidised out of the national fiscus with R584 million going to support councillor remuneration over the medium term expenditure framework.

Municipalities have been allocated R82.9 billion over the next three years. Included in this is also a replacement provision of R24 billion for the Regional Services Council (RSC) levies, which have long been an income stream for district and metropolitan municipalities.

RSC levies will be abolished on 1 July.

Source: BuaNews