LUCAS LEDWABA
The SA Local Government Association (SALGA) has told parliament it will roll out the Municipal Performance Management Training Programme after Members of Parliament enquired why corruption is still on the rise in the sector when the number of Councillors attending training is increasing every year.
SALGA this week presented its 2020/21 annual performance plan to the Portfolio Committee on Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA) as well as the Select Committee on Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Water and Sanitation and Human Settlements.
The local government sector has been fingered for rampant corruption and declining financial management standards.
Last year Auditor-General Kimi Makwetu said in his report for the 2017/18 financial year there had been an overall decline in audit results. Makwetu said the state of deteriorating audit outcomes showed that various local government role players had been slow in implementing, and in many instances even disregarded, the audit office’s recommendations.
He said as a result the accountability for financial and performance management continues to worsen in most municipalities. President Cyril Ramaphosa has since launched the Khawuleza District Development model to help ailing municipalities.
This week SALGA president Thembi Nkadimeng, who is also the mayor of the Polokwane Local municipality told parliament that the organisation will convene the 4th Annual Local Government Performance Management Seminar by March next year.
She said the entity will further roll-out the Municipal Performance Management Training Programme as well as consolidate an integrated capacity building implementation as means to improve capacity-building in local government.
Nkadimeng said SALGA will also continuously support and advise municipalities on certain issues such as a Climate Change Response Programme.
The organisation will ensure that municipalities are exposed to new innovative water and sanitation solutions and management.
Thus, convene workshops in all provinces to roll out the Consequences and Accountability Framework.
Nkadimeng who previously told Inside Metro that 66% of councillors did not have a post matric qualification said there were four interlinking challenges facing municipalities and the local government sector.
She identified the challenges as capabilities, governance, and leadership; spatial transformation and inclusion; fiscal policy and financial management; service delivery and infrastructure.
Nkadimeng said although local government is responsible for 46% of the constitutional functions, it receives the lowest allocation of the national expenditure allocation at 9%.
Cogta parliamentary oversight committee chairperson Faith Muthambi raised concern that labour relations was a major challenge facing municipalities and called for effective labour dispute mechanisms.
Muthambi’s concern came at a time when the SA Municipal Workers Union (SAMWU) accused municipalities of “failing dismally to protect the health and safety of municipal workers, including the failure to provide them with necessary Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) required for the safe execution of their duties.”
The union said the “failure by municipalities has resulted in a sharp increase in municipal workers testing positive for Covid-19, a reality which has begun to cause panic and alarm in the Local Government sector.”
SALGA told the select committee on appropriations during its presentation of its response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 Division of Revenue Bill on Wednesday that local government bears significant costs for the delivery of unfunded and underfunded mandates. SALGA blamed this on delayed transfers from the provincial government.
SALGA’s Khomotso Letsatsi said the allocations from the provinces “are not transferred on time as per the agreed payment schedule, and in many instances, service level agreements have not been signed by the provincial departments.”
As SALGA argues for the consideration of direct transfers to the municipalities, the National Treasury’s Director for Local Government and Budget Framework, Mr Steven Kenyon, told the committee that the direct transfer will be a violation of budget flows between the spheres of government, and that budget flow principle is legally binding. He said it can be changed only through a constitutional process.
The committee heard that the current disaster risk management directives to the local government have worsened the financial burden on the municipalities, that the disaster relief funding allocated to the local government is insufficient and is not released on time to respond to the additional costs that include frequent services in the informal settlements, provision of water to the communities that do not access to water and the cleaning of public facilities.
(Additional reporting by Parliament News)
