24 June 2005
Finance Minister Trevor Manuel and Provincial and Local Government Minister Sydney Mufamadi have sent out a strong warning that there is no room for corruption or nepotism in municipalities.
The two ministers were addressing provincial premiers, MECs and mayors in Cape Town on Thursday at a meeting of Project Consolidate, a programme to kick-start service delivery in South Africa's 136 poorest municipalities.
"We will arrest people," Manuel said. "We will demonstrate, as President Mbeki has demonstrated, that we will not tolerate any hint of corruption in local government - not only local government, but any sphere of government - and we want to ensure that nobody leaves here with any equivocation about that issue."
Manuel was referring to Government Gazette 27 636, which prohibits elected officials or municipal employees from tendering for any contracts, The Star newspaper reports.
"Nobody's going to benefit, nobody's spouse is going to benefit," Manuel said. "The rules are going to be clear and we will ensure that the incentives and disincentives are in place.
"No mayor should say 'I employed my brother as municipal manager. I trust him because he is of the same blood, of the same womb, therefore we shouldn't have a failure'.
"No, no, no. We must get the most capable people to run our municipalities," the Star quoted Manuel as saying.
What was needed, Manuel said, was to find an equilibrium between what a municipality could raise as revenue and what it could spend.
"It can't first say 'Let's have an IDP [integrated development plan], let's spend. Now, where does the money come from?'"
Manuel said this equilibrium needed to be understood on a case-by-case basis as against the needs and, if there was a gap between equilibrium and the needs, what the "tipping point" was.
He cautioned municipalities against overspending and relying on provincial and central government as "donors" to bail them out of financial trouble.
"Project Consolidate is about ensuring that we don't run ourselves into trouble," he said.
'Pull up your socks'
At the meeting, Mufamadi warned municipalities to "pull up your socks and start delivering or face a popular backlash", Business Day reports.
Mufamadi said because many municipalities were relatively new it might be difficult for them to change their situation for the better, without help from central and provincial government.
Mufamadi urged municipalities to develop an "enduring local innovative base", without which sustained development and service delivery would not be realised.
"We need to mobilise the whole of government to intervene to make sure our municipalities in danger of getting estranged from the base are assisted as a matter of urgency," Business Day quoted him as saying.
Mufamadi said the 136 municipalities should visibly respond to the concerns of communities.
Using sanitation as an example, he said central government was "annoyed" to discover the bucket system still in use in some municipalities that had money for sanitation, and where the mayor and municipal manager were unaware of the existing infrastructure.
Mufamadi said municipalities would be identified where municipal-wide public meetings would be held, according to Business Day.
"If there is a problem of water and sanitation the relevant national department, the relevant provincial department and the relevant authorities at local level are going to take responsibility in that particular individual municipality to make sure that problem is addressed within a given time frame," he said.
Project Consolidate
Project Consolidate is a hands-on programme to improve local government. So far, 136 of the country's poorest municipalities have been targeted. The initiative is to use the skills of individuals with
a thorough knowledge of local government, so as to mitigate the learning curve.
The aim is to accelerate the provision of free basic services - such as sanitation, water electricity and refuse removal - by training municipal staff. Civil, electrical and water engineers have been made available to poor and understaffed municipalities to help stabilise electricity and water networks.
People with financial skills have been deployed as interim managers to deal with municipal financial viability, financial management, fiscal discipline and billing systems. Municipal employees are also being trained to use recently acquired service delivery equipment.
Human resource experts have been provided to develop organisational structures and assess the skills and competencies of municipal staff. Legal skills are being used to resolve labour disputes that have hampered service delivery.
SouthAfrica.info reporter
