13 September 2007
Programme Director;
The National Chairperson of SALGA, Mayor Amos Masondo;
The chairperson of Salga-Gauteng, Mayor Duma Nkosi
Executive Members of Salga-Gauteng
Members of the Salga-Gauteng assembly
Guests, ladies and gentlemen
It is once more an honour and a privilege to have been invited to be part of the opening of your annual members' assembly in Gauteng this year.
We have observed before that the importance of local government derives largely from its position as the critical interface between the government service delivery system and the people. It is with this understanding of the importance of local government that we have to tackle the challenge of halving poverty and unemployment and underdevelopment by 2014.
This assembly takes place in an environment polluted by what is termed service delivery protests. Although these protests are happening in only a handful of our wards, and involve only a minority of citizens, they have created hysteria because of the orchestrated violence accompanying them. Last week, the extended executive council, which included MECs and mayors from all municipalities, discussed and affirmed the right of citizens to protest. We have however the violence that accompanied these protests deplorable and deserving of strong condemnation.
This period calls for strong leadership and we have agreed that violent protests would not enable a group or community to "jump the service delivery queue" or enable one community to be given preference over another community in the rollout of housing and other facilities and infrastructure. Nor would violent protests by particular groups prevent the implementation of development projects aimed at improving the community as a whole.
We need to work together as the national, the provincial and local government to deal comprehensively deal with the issues raised in the protests and stamp out the violence.
Critical areas that need immediate attention include the improvement of communication across the three spheres of government and effective coordination in responding to all the key issues raised by our communities.
Ward councillors often bear the brunt of violence during these protest and we need to improve the capacity to function effectively within their wards. This include providing them with information about the planned developments in their wards and progress reports to enable them to provide regular feedback to communities.
Ward committees and community development workers will also need to be empowered to address community concerns and grievances long before they turn into violence.
Over a year ago, as municipalities and the provincial government we agreed on a strategy to build Gauteng as an integrated, globally competitive city region. We identified as a priority the need to create conditions for a single metropolitan system of governance in Gauteng and reviewing powers and functions of various spheres of government to improve service delivery.
We are now working on the completion of a proposal on the establishment of a metropolitan system of governance which will be discussed the Premier's Coordination Forum before it is submitted to the Demarcation Board this year.
While this process continues we have agreed to explore twinning arrangements between our metros and regional municipalities. This will allow for a sharing of knowledge, expertise, support and improved service delivery. The Tshwane Metro and Metsweding will pilot this system and lessons drawn from this pilot will be used to identify areas cooperation and support between the two other metros and regional municipalities.
I must emphasise though that these twinning arrangements must be based on mutual benefit. We must be guided by an understanding that regional municipalities have areas of excellence from which metros can learn and metros also have well developed expertise that they can share with regional municipalities.
Programme director, the need to deepen democracy and accountability can not be over-emphasised. Last month we launched the municipal public accounts committees in all municipalities. These committees are not intended to replace mayor councils or to determine budgets. They are intended to improve oversight and accountability and ensure that the public finances are used for purpose intended.
We however must also boost public participation in the development of Integrated Development Plans and ensure that we manage expectations that can be created by this process. Councillors must increase their visibility in their wards. They must be seen to be building ward-level democracy and broadening public participation in democracy.
We are beginning to see the negative impact of rapid urbanization and in-migration on social fabric of province. our population has now reach 9.6 million according to the mid-2007 estimates by Statistic South Africa. The impact of have that number of people occupying just 1.4% of the country's land area can be seen incidents of substance abuse, violent social crime, teen pregnancies, the abuse of women, children, the elderly and people with disabilities.
We need to discuss and come up with a framework of social cohesion measures and an action plan to promote moral regeneration, instil parenting skills and improve gender relations. We must also develop integrated poverty alleviation strategies to ensure maximum impact on the poor and align provincial and local government strategies to build social development, cohesion and inclusion.
One of our key challenges is in building sustainable human settlements. This is an area that organisers of protests find easy to exploit. In 2004 we identified informal settlements that needed to be formalised and or upgraded. We now require a review of progress made to fulfil this commitment. But while we do that we will need to fast-tract the rollout of basic services such as water, sanitation, and electricity. The negative consequences of rapid urbanisation is also beginning to be felt by communities through power supply disruptions and environmental degradation. Together we must investigate common approaches to energy efficiency, the sustainable use of non-renewable energy sources, alternative energy sources, waste management, greening and carbon credits.
Last year we launched of 20 priority township upgrading programme. it signalled our determination to decisively break the back of apartheid planning and underdevelopment and continue to transform our townships into vibrant, dynamic and sustainable communities where people live with decent social amenities and access to economic opportunities.
This programme has a potential to build social development and stimulate economic activities in townships thus ensuring that people in these areas are not left behind in efforts to build their province into a globally competitive city region.
The countdown to 11 June 2010 - when South Africa will be hosting the Fifa Soccer World Cup - has begun in earnest. Our preparations for also gathering steam with significant progress being made to build stadia, practice venues, transport infrastructure and health care facilities.
We are working together, as provincial government and municipalities, to host the FIFA international broadcast centre in Nasrec and in developing the ICT infrastructure and broadband connectivity across the province.
Programme director, this assembly provides us with an opportunity to ramp up our work and deliver on mandate given to us in the 2004 general elections as well as the 2006 local government elections. You have an important task to come up with idea to maximise the impact of our service delivery initiatives, to stimulate the economy, create jobs, reduced poverty and unemployment and ensure that Gauteng truly becomes a better place in which to live.
I wish you well in your discussions and look forward to the proposals that the assembly will make.