26 June 2008

LOCAL Government MEC Qedani Mahlangu delivered her budget allocation speech at the Gauteng Legislature on June 13 and said "the municipal support programme is our focus this year and this includes organizational business re-engineering, human resources development strategies and management systems."

Mahlangu said: "we have developed an action plan to make local government work better for citizens of the province - key to the plan is provision of essential support to municipalities."

Mahlangu said her department's key role is to assist municipalities to deal with outstanding consumer debt, resolve electricity billing system problems, lack of financial management capacity and skills.

To deal with these problems the Advisory Commission on Municipal Finances was established and to date 95% of unpaid government debtors was collected from both provincial and national departments.

To date, all municipalities have submitted their 2007/08 audit report and most have received unqualified audit reports. In dealing with the skills shortage, DLG in partnership with the South African Institute for Civil Engineers have deployed engineers and graduates to help accelerate final spending and to implement infrastructure projects.

To address service delivery challenges, the department has recruited 481 CDW's across Gauteng and will spend R70 million on the CDW programme.

On the Provincial Disaster Management Centre, Mahlangu said: "The recent violent attacks on foreign nationals put the centre to the test."

"But it also presented us with an opportunity to improve certain things and to review at how effective can we coordinate with municipalities, in this financial year we have allocated R22 million to put in place effective disaster and risk reduction and management strategies for the World Cup and Gautrain."

In responding to energy challenges, the MEC said the department will rollout solar geysers, powered traffic light, replacing high mast lights with street lights, installing energy efficient lighting in government buildings.

An additional 10.9 million will also be spent this year to provide support to municipalities HIV/Aids programmes.

The department in partnership with the Gauteng Youth Commission will conduct a study on the impact of local government programmes in the province. The outcomes of which will be released by the end of September 2008.

Source: dlg.gpg.gov.za