The Minister of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA) Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma will need more than her many years in government administration and the skills she honed while at the helm of the African Union (AU) to turn around the fortunes of South Africa’s ailing municipalities.
Dlamini-Zuma, who replaced Dr Zweli Mkhize who is now health minister, clearly understands the challenges that lie ahead if her budget vote speech before parliament in July is anything to go by – but more on that a little later.
In May last year, Auditor General Kimi Makwetu sent an SOS to Mkhize asking him to intervene in a rather disturbing case in which auditors examining the books of the eThekwini metro and uMsunduzi municipality, both in KwaZulu-Natal, were intimidated and chased out by officials.
In this ‘law of the jungle’ scenario, Makwetu’s office was forced to withdraw their audit managers from the two municipalities fearing for their safety.
In response, the eThekwini Metro announced it had developed a security plan for the AG’s staff members “to ensure they are safeguarded during the auditing period.”
If anything, this intimidation of members of a Chapter 9 institution bordered on treason, especially when taking into account the challenges faced by municipalities throughout the country as found by Makwetu in his 2017/18 audit report.
Murmurs of auditors working with one eye on the books and another on the lookout for potential attackers have been doing the rounds for quite some time.
But this was probably the first time an incident of this nature was publicly conveyed to the minister.
It is no secret that most of the country’s 257 municipalities are plagued by mounting problems most of which will take more than the intervention of a minister during a five-year term of office.
Some, like the lack of skills both technical and financial are a national problem faced not only by local government, but the broader society as well.
Added to that is the cancer of corruption and looting which the ruling party has, through treating comrades implicated in graft with kid gloves, left to
thrive, grow and fester for a long time.
Seeing that there’s hardly any consequences suffered for mismanaging public funds has encouraged a culture of looting with impunity.
Will Dlamini-Zuma live up to the task of clamping down on corruption and the corrupt?
She comes into the portfolio with a clean, respectable record as a dedicated civil servant and administrator who has never been caught with her hands in the cookie jar. But the challenges facing municipalities are massive and will require more than a clean track record from the minister.
In his 2017/18 audit report on municipalities Makwetu painted a rather sorry and alarming state of affairs at municipalities.
Of the 257 municipalities audited the AG found that only 18 municipalities submitted “quality financial statements and performance reports, as well as complied with all key legislation, thereby receiving a clean audit.”
Makwetu found that a total of 101 municipalities had unqualified audits with findings, while 78 had qualified audits and 10 others adverse findings. Even more worrying only 18 of the 257 district and local municipalities received an unqualified audit opinion with no findings.
Added to that Cogta faces challenges of its own with regards to adhering to the strict audit guidelines.
This past Tuesday, the Portfolio Committee on Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA) raised concern regarding the department’s late submission of its annual report which was expected by September 30.
“It is unfortunate that we are where we are in relation to the annual report of the Department of Cooperative Governance, and unfortunately this interrupts the work of the committee.
“The tabling of an annual report is a statutory requirement that promotes accountability and transparency of the department, which has an ultimate goal of improving trust and confidence of the public service,” committee chair Faith Muthambi grumbled in a statement.
She went further to say that the department has failed to adhere to submission dates over the past three financial years and that it has received unsatisfactory audits opinions over the preceding two years, a disclaimer and a qualified with findings audit opinion.
Muthambi also called out the Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities (CRL), an organ falling under Cogta, for not submitting annual statements timeously, along with engaging in unsound business practices.
This kind of misconduct and lack of adherence to principles of auditing is unfortunately something that continues to plague municipalities.
Cogta is tasked with running the affairs of different spheres of government including, and most importantly, local government. Muthambi rightly expressed the view that the “department must be a leader in both words and deeds.”
To be fair to Dlamini-Zuma the failure to meet the deadline submission to the AG cannot be blamed on her since she had been in office only three months at the time of the 30 September deadline.
But it’s a challenge for her to shake up structures within Cogta to clean up their act because as Muthambi rightly says, the department should lead by example. If the minister’s own office can’t comply with auditing requirements then surely it would be unfair to expect a rural based municipality to do so.
Dlamini-Zuma has assembled a good team. One of her deputies is Parks Tau, an administrator and politician with a clean record who earned his stripes at the coal face of local government as MMC in the City of Joburg and later as mayor.
Tau also served as president of the global organisation United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) and the President of the South African Local Government Association (SALGA).
His understanding of local government challenges may well be the key to hurdle some of the challenges faced by municipalities.
Dlamini-Zuma’s other right hand man is Obed Bapela, an ANC veteran with a strong grassroot ethic.
Bapela has proven himself competent in dealing with the complex politics and issues affecting traditional leaders.
But still many challenges especially centred around the land issue remain
unresolved with respect to traditional leaders who continue to be engaged in a disruptive power struggle with municipalities over control of and use of land.
The ANC government has always threaded with caution when dealing with amakhosi, fearing to upset their rural constituency, something which has not always been in the best interests of voters. Dlamini-Zuma and her team will need to show some form of urgency and decisiveness on this.
Dlamini-Zuma admitted the challenges faced by local government in a rather sober and honest address before parliament in July.
She admitted that the major challenges include weak governance, non-compliance with legislation, poor quality of annual financial management,
internal control weaknesses, supply chain management, performance challenges as well as the lack a lack of service delivery.
She also honest enough to admit that dealing with the challenges “is going to be a marathon rather than a sprint, but it has to be done.”
But does a nation – faced with over 40 municipalities under administration and billions of taxpayers’ money wasted through mismanagement and corruption – have the patience to run this marathon when it is clear things are falling apart, and falling apart fast?
Is Dlamini-Zuma prepared to crack the whip and fire incompetent, lazy, corrupt officials and risk a showdown with labour unions behind whom most of these rogues hide their ineptitude?
Is she ready to shake up the administration in her own management structures to ensure Cogta leads by example as a cleanly administered portfolio?
Is she ready for a showdown with amakhosi who have never really accepted that municipalities, and not traditional authorities, are the key drivers of service delivery?
Let the marathon begin…
