Fred Nel is a young liberal democrat politician for the Democratic Alliance from Pretoria in South Africa. He believes that politics is serious stuff but requires a mandatory sense of humour.
National and Provincial Governments collectively owe Gauteng municipalities R226 million in rates and taxes. This was revealed in a written reply to my questions to the MEC for Local Government and Housing, Humphrey Mmemezi, in the Gauteng Provincial Legislature.
At the end of March this year Gauteng municipalities were owed R22.212 billion (for debt older than 90 days)by consumers, businesses and government departments.
National and Provincial Government departments have a legal obligation and a social responsibility towards municipalities to ensure that they pay their accounts on time. The overdue amount of R226 million impacts negatively on the cash flow of municipalities and in turn on their ability to deliver services.
I call on the MEC to interact directly with the relevant ministers and MEC's of departments owing monies to municipalities for rates and taxes, to ensure that these accounts are settled. Failing this the MEC should name and shame those departments refusing to co-operate.
Government departments should lead by example in paying their municipal rates and tax bills and in doing so, contribute towards sustainable local government.
The categories of debtors owing municipalities for 90 days or longer are:
·Municipal consumers (households) owe municipalities R 15.673 billion.
·Business property owners and occupants owe municipalities R 5.019 billion.
·Government department owe municipalities R 226.390 million.
The DA will continue to monitor the local government debt situation in Gauteng and highlight the problem of arrear debtors until the situation improves significantly.
Debt owed to Gauteng Municipalities increased by R1,6 billion in the quarter from January to end March 2011. This is only debt older than 90 days. This was revealed in the latest consolidated municipal statements published in the Gauteng Provincial Government Gazette (27 June 2011).
Total debt owed to municipalities for longer than 90 days increased from R 20,588bn at end December 2010 to R22,212bn at end of March 2011. The municipalities in Gauteng are owed as follows (note all amounts are for 90 days plus).
Johannesburg: R 8,389bn
Ekurhuleni: R 7,198bn
Tshwane: R 2,759bn
Emfuleni: R 1,869bn
Mogale City: R 558,635m
Merafong: R 490,813m
Kungwini: R336,440m (now disestablished, amount should be added to Tshwane Metro)
Randfontein: R 209,799m
Lesedi: R 129,594m
Nokeng tsa Taemane: R123,876m (now disestablished, amount should be added to Tshwane Metro)
Westonaria: R 94,077m
Midvaal: R 54,661m
West Rand District: R 3,980m
Sedibeng District: R1,768m
Metsweding District: R nil (now disestablished, amount should be added to Tshwane Metro)
The seriousness of the growth in debtors owing for more than 90 days cannot be underestimated as the bulk of these debts are usually not recovered. R 22bn can make a huge difference in the cash flow and liquidity of Gauteng municipalities and improve their ability to deliver services in Gauteng.
An encouraging sign is the reduction in the debt owed to municipalities between 31 and 60 days which could be an indication of improved collection rates among Gauteng municipalities.
Disconcerting, however, is the reduction in current debt owed to municipalities which could indicate a lack of growth in income among these municipalities. Also of concern seems to be the conversion of debt older than 60 days to 90 days plus which becomes very difficult to recover.
However, if municipalities continue to improve their collection rates before the 60 day period has expired, the 90 days plus debt should grow much slower in future. This once again highlights the importance that should be placed on improved financial management at municipalities and how crucial it is to appoint suitably qualified people in financial management positions.
In the Gauteng Provincial Legislature during this week’s budget debate on local government and housing, I called for the Community Development Worker programme (CDW) to be scrapped in its entirety and the R86 million spent on this programme to be allocated to more important local government priorities.
The Department of Local Government and Housing was given R4.568 billion for the 2011/12 financial year to address housing and local government. It is shocking that local government has only been allocated 5,5% of the department’s budget or 0,37% (R208 million) of Gauteng’s overall budget. I question the province’s commitment to rectifying what is wrong with local government. It stands to reason that when a limited budget has been allocated to a programme, it should be very skillfully prioritised in order to ensure that it is used to maximum effect.
When the Local Governance budget is evaluated it becomes clear that the Gauteng Department of Local Government and Housing’s priorities are as follows.
Community development workers (42%);
Municipal finance (26%)
Capacity and development (12%)
Municipal administration (6%)
Firstly the problem within this programme is with the significant expenditure on community development workers. When one analyses the priorities set out by the Local Government Turnaround Strategy there is no real function for community development workers. The strategy focuses on improved financial management, service delivery, capacity building, efficient planning and accountability.
Secondly, a study undertaken on behalf of the department by the Community Agency for Social Enquiry (CASE) last year found that community development workers had very little impact in Gauteng. Only 12% of Gauteng’s residents were aware of CDW’s in their areas and only 43% of these respondents knew what a CDW does. This means only 5% of the total sample knew what a CDW does. In addition less than 3% of those surveyed ever received assistance from a CDW. Taking into consideration that there was a CDW in almost every municipal ward in Gauteng during the period under review, this impact is extremely low.
Lastly, CDW’s are accountable to provincial government while dealing with local government and national government issues. Although CDW’s have assisted a very small percentage of residents to gain access to basic services, the bulk of their time is used to assist with obtaining grants, important documents like ID’s, accessing skills training opportunities and receiving assistance with community development projects.
CDW’s can merely report problems to municipalities but do not have the backing or capacity to drive those complaints to a conclusion. CDW’s are thus accountable to a sphere of government it does not represent while addressing issues from residents in a sphere where they have no influence.
The DA would like to see the CDW programme scrapped in its entirety and the R 86 million spent on this programme rather allocated to more important priorities within the local governance sub-programme. In order to solve the problems faced by municipalities in Gauteng three things must happen:
Municipal finance management must be improved considerably including addressing the issue of financial sustainability as identified as a risk by the Auditor General in his latest report on municipal finances in Gauteng.
Human resource capacity must be restored by appointing suitably qualified and fit for purpose career officials in key management positions in municipalities.
Mayors must be left to be mayors and held accountable for their decisions and not for those decisions prescribed to them by an outside political body.
The announcement by Sedibeng mayor Simon Mofokeng that his district municipality intends establishing a Regional Authority is illegal. There is no provision for such a structure in South African municipal law and the district should rather focus on executing its current obligations to the advantage of the whole Sedibeng region in south Gauteng.
Such a structure will have no legal status or powers and would constitute a waste of precious local government resources. If the district adhered to its current legal obligations it would be more effective than a regional authority would be.
The Sedibeng mayor’s announcement that he wants to turn the district municipality into a metro follows a similar announcement by the West Rand District Municipality mayor earlier this week. A metro should not be established in any of these two districts as it would remove local government further from those it should serve, its residents. Smaller municipalities are more viable as Midvaal has proven. All that is needed is good political leadership and officials that can do the job.
Although the Gauteng government has indicated a preference for establishing metros all over the province, it should rather contemplate disestablishing the remaining district municipalities to free up more resources for local municipalities.
The DA in Gauteng will oppose any attempt to move municipal government further away from residents. Any such move should be supported by viability studies rather than be based on the whim of a district mayor.
In the Premier’s speech with regards local government, not only was nothing new on offer for local government in our province, the Premier ignored it almost in total. Apart from mentioning a single local government system, the merger of the Kungwini, Nokeng tsa Taemane and Metsweding municipalities with the Tshwane metro as well as the Joburg billing crisis, the premier offered no insight into the future of local government in Gauteng. I do however welcome the Premier’s acknowledgement that the Joburg billing crisis is indeed a “crisis” despite her colleague the Mayor refusing to acknowledge it as such. What I also missed is the detail on local government going forward with vision 2055. A number of questions hang in the air.
1. What happened to the two new cities that the ANC’s provincial secretary alluded to when he announced vision 2055? 2. What will the single local government system look like? 3. How will municipalities link into the Gauteng Spatial Development Framework? 4. What is the future of the Gauteng City Region and what will it look like?
The Premier had a golden opportunity to address the financial woes of municipalities as well as the lack of critical skills that hamper service delivery, probably the two biggest problems in local government today. However, she decided to focus only on what can best be described as election promises. Once again I would like to repeat that we can solve the problems experienced by local government by doing three things, namely:
1. Restore proper financial management in our municipalities; 2. Appoint qualified officials in specialized posts; and 3. Eradicate external political influence to allow Mayors to make independent, transparent and accountable decisions in the best interest of their municipalities.
I believe that the main focal point of the department should be to restore service delivery by restoring proper financial management and controls in municipalities. Without money municipalities will not be able to deliver the services expected of them. We need skilled, professional career local government officials and not deployed cadres which leads to tender and other forms of corruption. We need people in positions that can do the work and as Cape town has proven, this can be achieved while empowering those previously disadvantaged South Africans.”
Some positive news recently emerged after DA Leader and Western Cape Premier, Helen Zille, met with President Jacob Zuma. This was that provinces are not in the immediate firing line of the ANC Government. However, Zuma’s assurances did not close the door on either the debate or the possibility of provinces disappearing in the future. He just indicated that provinces were here to stay for the time being and that he will inform other parties when this changes. Thus it can be argued that the door is still wide open on the issue. A further sign that the door is still wide open on the future of provinces is the fact that Constitutional Amendment 17 is still on the table. This amendment will give central government the power to intervene in the executive decision making of municipal councils should it experience resistance to the execution of its centrally formulated schemes. Power, I would suggest, paving the way for the abolition of provinces and regulating a centralised relationship between national and local government. Should provinces be abolished in the future it will lead to an over centralisation of power and it will effectively erode South Africa’s Constitution to such an extent that it will impede the freedom its citizens are enjoying currently. There will be less accountability by Government as central government will become extremely big and inaccessible. Local government, even though it might enjoy more powers, will just become even more derelict in service delivery as it will not be able to deal with the added responsibilities. It already struggles with its current mandate how will it deal with current provincial powers being devolved to it in future? It seems as if, technically, Jacob Zuma was honest with HelenZille when he said that provinces will remain for the time being. However, I do not believe he was totally honest about the ANC’s plans for provinces once “for the time being” has expired. I still firmly believe that provinces are still very much in the firing line of the ANC government. The main argument will be that provinces are a “stone in the river” slowing down the flow of resources necessary for proper service delivery. This argument does not hold water as the flow of resources can be accelerated through proper and capable management and management systems and procedures. The argument does inherently come down to an admission by the ANC that it is unable to govern provinces. An inherent admission that the ANC failed despite hailing their successes during every election campaign. The ANC does not seem able to manage within any type of system that is not centrally controlled (i.e. control freaking). So, beware the debate about provinces are still a very hot issue and we should not become complacent based on “technically honest” assurances. We cannot go forward on assurances, what we need is a commitment from President Zuma that provinces should stay, we need a totally honest stance before we can become assured.
Today I had quite an interesting experience. I visited one of the Gautrain sites. The Gautrain is a rapid rail link that will connect the OR Tambo Airport by rail to Sandton and on the north-south axis Johannesburg Park Station will be connected with Pretoria and Hatfield stations via Sandton. A ride between Johannesburg and Pretoria stations will be 35 minutes! Much better than the hour plus it takes on the highway nowadays. The Gautrain is the largest greenfields rail project in the world currently and will cost about R 30 billion. You can read more interesting facts about the train at www.gautrain.co.za.
The visit was very interesting and impressive. It started out at the Gautrain headquarters in Linbro Park where we received a safety induction. After the induction we were presented with a slide show about the project and its progress. According to the presenter they are ahead of their schedule to finish the rail link.
After the presentation and a number of questions we were issued with safety shoes, reflector jackets and hard hats and were put on a bus which headed to the Gautrain depot in Midrand. The depot is where the trains are stored, assembled, tested (each train must complete 3000 test hours before it can be commissioned) and maintained. Very well equipped. Currently the site also accommodates the concrete casting works for the viaduct parts. This part will be converted to a bus depot for the Gautrain buses.
After arriving at the depot we had another safety briefing (they are really very safety conscious) and were taken off to the stores where the trains are being kept. As you can see from the photographs we were able to inspect the trains close up and were explained how the driver controls work. Very high tech stuff. There were (obviously) opportunities for pictures and questions to the resident experts. All the while being watched closely by the security guards. Unfortunately we couldn’t get onto a moving train but did see them running up and down the test track. These trains achieve 160 km/h (they achieved this yesterday and today – the engineers are very chuffed!), really quick.
Also interesting are the track inspection vehicles. Three Land Rovers fitted with track wheels (small train wheels) that engage once they are on the track and then inspect the tracks to make sure the trains can use them safely. Good to know they are doing this because it would not be fun crashing in one of these trains at a 160 km/h!!
The trains run on electricity which they get from 25 KVA (25 000 volt!) overhead lines – it was made clear to us a number of times that should you touch the overhead wire, it will be the only time you will get to do it – you will end up a small heap of carbon if you do.
Well, enough about trains – check out my pics and the website for more interesting stuff.
NOW ABOUT MY WEEKEND AHEAD
If you thought us politicians do a weekday, daytime only job, think again. Yes, another weekend full of politics. Quite a significant one actually.
On Friday afternoon it is off to Cape Town where I will attend my last ADAC (Association of DA Councillors) National Council meeting (see www.adac.co.za for more info about ADAC). On Saturday my successor will be elected after I make a presentation about the ADAC strategy and our future training approach. I am really sad to leave ADAC as it has been such an enriching experience and probably one of the best positions you can ever occupy in politics. However, I am now an MPL and therefore have to move on as new challenges await me.
Soon after making my presentation on Saturday morning it is back to Gauteng and off to Kwa Ndaba where our caucus (DA Gauteng Provincial Caucus) will be having our first bosberaad (team building and strategy formulation meeting). On Sunday it is back home.
I am particularly also looking forward to Monday when I will have my first portfolio committee meeting. Come back on Monday evening or Tuesday to read more about what goes on in such a committee.
Enjoy your weekend! I hope I can catch the end of the Springboks vs. British and Irish Lions test. Go Bokke!!
