Solly Phetoe is general secretary of Cosatu. Photo: File
By Solly Phetoe
One of the state’s weakest links and perhaps the most intractable has been local government. Stabilising and rebuilding local government must be at the top of the to do list for the 7th administration led by President Cyril Ramaphosa and the ANC.
A cursory review of the auditor-general’s reports on metros and municipalities reveals a horror story. A decade ago, about 10% of metros and municipalities were in financial distress – today its approximately 80%. Forensic audits have shown a municipal public procurement system that has become synonymous with state capture, corruption, and wastage.
As the government has cracked down on corruption, many metros and municipalities have returned billions in infrastructure grants unspent as they simply lack the capacity and skills to pave roads, roll out sanitation, and provide electricity, among others.
Reports are to be submitted to Parliament in November showing countless municipalities having only spent a third of their budgets halfway through the year.
SMMEs supplying various services to municipalities often wait months to receive payments for services rendered, thus threatening their ability to pay their staff.
The prior absence of legislation compelling municipalities to buy locally produced goods and not imports has seen countless choose to simply disregard the government’s efforts to support and grow local suppliers and sectors.
Many communities particularly the working class have experienced a rapid deterioration in the quality of municipal services. This has seen companies close and retrench workers when they no longer have access to roads, electricity, and water and sanitation they require to operate. This has plunged already struggling towns such as Lichtenburg, and Frankfort into abject poverty.
Increasing numbers of municipalities continuously fail to pay their employees, in particular in the Free State, North West, Northern and Eastern Cape.
It is clear to all sober persons that unless decisive interventions are undertaken, many municipalities will simply collapse into a state of anarchy.
As the Soviet Revolutionary Vladimir Lenin aptly posed, “What is to be done?”
First is to ensure the rolling out of the government’s capacitation programme targeting 140 of the most vulnerable municipalities. These must be expedited.
Linked to this must be a greater role for national and provincial government to ensure that infrastructure grants are spent, and spent correctly. The government has allocated a massive R953 billion for infrastructure investments over the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework. If achieved, this would have a massive impact on the economy and unemployment, more so if materials such as cement, steel, etc are locally manufactured and purchased. For this to happen, municipalities must be capacitated and the government must have a much tighter coordination and implementation role.
Many municipalities simply lack a rates base and economy sufficient to sustain them. Some are just too small to deliver on their own. The path towards the District Development Model needs to be fleshed out and accelerated, including bringing together municipalities too small to be sustainable as currently configured.
For example, does it make sense for Laingsburg, Prince Albert and Beaufort West among others to continue stumbling along under permanently struggling and dysfunctional municipalities or would it make better sense to build a well-capacitated Karoo District Council to ensure the provision of municipal services.
Society is not interested in who is the mayor or where their office is, but whether they will have paved roads, running water, modern sanitation, clean communities, and reliable electricity.
Recent legislative amendments requiring qualified senior management need to be implemented to ensure for example that persons qualified as engineers, electricians etc are appointed to relevant positions.
One of the greatest challenges facing local government are the levels of corruption and criminality. Some require partnerships with communities to secure rail and electricity infrastructure from cable theft, while others need the interventions of the Special Investigating Unit, Hawks, SA Police Service, the National Prosecuting Authority and the courts to eradicate the entrenched criminal syndicates.
Society correctly expects those who steal from the public to be made guests of our Correctional Services’ facilities, including politicians and senior municipal managers.
The president recently signed the Public Procurement Act into law setting the framework for a single public procurement system, including municipalities. This will compel municipalities to support locally produced goods, and boost the fight against corruption by strengthening transparency, and accountability measures.
National Treasury and the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) must move with speed to ensure the act’s urgent promulgation and the development of regulations and systems, and train supply chain officials to ensure its full implementation.
Cogta recently released draft legislation providing governance frameworks where political parties fail to achieve a majority to govern councils on their own; setting a formula for coalitions to then come into effect to ensure municipal office-bearers are elected, budgets passed, and services delivered.
These are critical to avoid destabilising musical chairs in municipalities where mayors are changed every few months, and municipal services severely disrupted and they often collapse. Joburg, Tshwane, Nelson Mandela Bay, Kannaland are painful examples of the impact of political instability upon workers and communities.
While the executive must fulfil its constitutional mandate to govern and implement, Parliament and in particular the National Council of Provinces must increase their oversight-levels over provincial and local government, and hold delinquent municipalities accountable. Where municipalities fail to deliver, the National Council of Provinces and the executive must step in, including placing such councils under administration.
Workers, communities and businesses simply cannot afford rising numbers of municipalities to deteriorate and even collapse. Parliament should act and not be bystanders in such times of crisis.
If actioned, the above provide a roadmap to stabilise, rebuild, and capacitate municipalities to provide quality municipal services that working-class communities and the economy depend upon. What is required is political will.
Society does not expect miracles overnight, but they do correctly expect their taxes to be spent correctly, good governance to be the norm, and for those who break the law to be dealt with decisively.
Local government can and must be fixed. Cosatu and its affiliate Samwu will continue to sound the alarm and intervene as needed, as we embark upon rebuilding local government. What we cannot afford is to continue to normalise the abnormal.
Cosatu general secretary Solly Phetoe
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