Madam Speaker

In the introduction of the report on the state of local government of the Department of Cooperative Government and Traditional Affairs it is stated that "Local Government is every ones business". It further says that Local Government in South Africa has contributed to the achievement of a number of social and economic advances and that, and I quote: "Key elements of the local government system are showing signs of distress in 2009" and I am sure that we can all agree on that.

Madam Speaker

1.      What went wrong? What I am about to say has got no sweet sound to the ear but is an attempt to get to the core of what lead to the state of affairs that we are in since the white paper on Local Government appeared 11 years ago.

2.      The term "transformation" has been misinterpreted and resulted in "white bashing" instead of progressively striving towards the achievement of ideals set out in the Bill of Rights as ruled in two recent Constitutional court judgements.

3.      The fact that Executive mayors were appointed personally by former president Mbeki in 2000 was a mistake.

4.      The appointment of municipal and senior managers in coherence with “cadre deployment committees” was a mistake. This resulted in the ANC government`s plans for a Global City region for Gauteng and the disbandment of local municipalities and district municipalities - one national central civil service with the deployment of cadres from one sphere to another without the need for resignation.

Legislation compares with that of other developing countries but the people executing it came from a third world situation and the first world officials were disposed of. The current legislation is too complicated for a substantial number of officials. The disbandment of the Occupational Act for Town Clerks on 31 October 1996 by mr Vali Moosa rung the bell for the new dispensation even before it has started. Professional people had to train designated trainees to take over from them and in many instances the so-called professional trainers were disposed of even before the trainees were fully trained. A great number of them lost their jobs after they messed up everything around them. Currently, 27 municipal managers out of 283 in South Africa are on suspension. We therefore welcome the announcement by Deputy Minister Yunus Carrim regulating municipal managers. 

This resulted in a state of no confidence in the system reducing public participation to “stadium democracy” where slogans are used to call on the emotions of the masses.

The most IDP inputs are received from townships while other maintenance was neglected.

Madam Speaker, the fact that Local Government is disfunctional is merely a symptom of a disfunctional state. The only two organs that are preventing Local Government from total collapse are the National Treasury and the Auditor General.

The Government is still not taking any blame and reference to apartheid is still made conveniently, shifting the blame and will probably be heard forever.

Speaker nothing will change if the real issues are not addressed. Local Government needs qualified and accountable management now. Without it, the turnaround strategy would be 360 degree one with no results.

Thank you Speaker