Government is set to amend the Water Services Act to recognise local government's leading role in water services and align it with the broader local government legislation.

Public Service and Administration Minister Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi said that a two-year engagement programme, called Project Consolidate, had profiled 136 municipalities in need of support. She said that uneven municipal capacity was the greatest risk to equitable service provision.

More families have less money: the number of households with no income has doubled since 1996 as unemployment has risen. For the City to meet its targets, this has to be addressed, says the IDP general manager.

Seven banks will oversee the City's programme to raise funds through bond issues over the next five years. The issues are guaranteed success as the underwriters will buy whatever is not snapped up by the market.

Preparations for South Africa's next round of local government elections will get under way towards the end of this month, with the Department of Home Affairs re-launching its ID campaign to enable more South Africans to vote.

Addressing the second session of the third democratic Parliament in Cape Town, President Thabo Mbeki said government continued to allocate more resources toward the provision of services and extending the safety net for the poor. It would further increase the capacity of municipalities through the Department of Provincial and Local Government.

African housing and development ministers meeting in Durban have resolved to report to various international organisations and African governments their progress on the outcomes of the summit.

Municipalities show a lack of readiness for the move to a required local government standard of accounting, a PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) survey shows, according to Business Day.

EVENTS CALENDAR | SECRETARIAT

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