APPROPRIATION BILL
(Second Reading Debates ensued)
The SPEAKER: Any other statements by the Executive Members? None. By Members? None.
The
SPEAKER: We then proceed to Motions. Motion 1 reads as follows:
That the Second Reading Debate on the Appropriation Bill be continued.
The hon
MEC, Mr Tsenoli.
Mr S L
TSENOLI (MEC):
Hon Speaker, hon Deputy Speaker, hon Premier, Members of the Executive
Council, hon Members of the Legislature, Members of the National Parliament,
Permanent Delegates of the NCOP, mayors and councillors.
*Hail
to the kings and the chiefs!
#The
real wealth of a nation is its people.
The purpose of development is to create an enabling environment for
people to enjoy long, healthy and creative lives. This simple but powerful truth is too often
forgotten in the pursuit of material and financial wealth.
Those
are the opening lines of the first Human Development Report, published in
1990. These reports trace the
improvement or otherwise of people’s quality of life. For us, it is a critical matter of reversing
years of apartheid, political and economic misrule and mismanagement. It is about the growing interdependence of
people in today’s globalizing world.
During
the historic conference, Habitat II, that took place in
·
Inadequate financial resources and a
lack of employment opportunities;
·
Spreading homelessness and expansion of
squatter settlements;
·
Increased poverty and the widening gap
between the rich and the poor;
·
Growing insecurity and rising crime
rates;
·
Lack of green spaces, inadequate water
supply and sanitation; and
·
Uncoordinated urban development and an
increasing vulnerability to disaster.
Our
South African municipalities face additional challenges. These challenges are succinctly described in
the White Paper on Local Government.
Local
Government, as it is presently designed, cannot fulfil its constitutional
developmental mandate of creating and sustaining humane, equitable and viable
human settlements.
The
Urban Development Framework released by the South African Department of Housing
in 1997 is the main policy guideline for the implementation of Habitat Agenda
in
·
Spatially and socio-economically
integrated, free of racial and gender discrimination and segregation, enabling
people to make residential and employment choices to pursue their ideals;
·
Centres of economic and social
opportunity where people can live and work in a safe, healthy and peaceful
environment;
·
Centres of vibrant urban governance
managed by democratic, efficient, sustainable and accountable metropolitan and
local governments in close co-operation with civil society and geared towards
innovative community-led development;
·
Environmentally sustainable, marked by
a balance between a quality-built environment and open space, as well as a
balance between consumption needs and renewable and non-renewable
resources. Sustainable development,
therefore, meets the needs of the present while not compromising the needs of
future generations;
·
Planned in a highly participatory
fashion that promotes the integration and sustainability of urban environments;
and
·
Marked by adequate housing
infrastructure and effective services that provide households and business a
basis for equitable standards of living.
The
Budget we speak about today is aimed at implementing this agenda in our
Province.
The
global picture we have referred to earlier, require that we have to act not
only locally, but also globally - as we will indicate in our closing remarks.
A
policy on Municipal International Relations is in the offing this year. The Department will act as conduit for
information and as facilitator of international contact. The Department will be collaborating with
stakeholders in setting municipal international relations priorities.
Our
vision of developmental local government should be our beacon at all
times. We need to intensify our
co-operative efforts amongst the three spheres of Government, namely National,
Provincial and Local Government.
This
month last year, at a conference entitled Intergovernmental Relations: Fostering Mutual Co-operation, the President,
in his concluding remarks, went to the heart of the matter when he
characterised the challenge we face in the following manner:
Whatever
challenges this new government faces, we should at least have worked on
proposals that address the elimination in Provincial Government of structural
blockages, duplication and the consequent wastage of resources.
Our
fundamental challenge is to construct a truly developmental state.
More
than by rules, we should be driven by the vision of creating a people-centered
society, with institutional ways of measuring progress.
Consistently,
our state system should be enterprising and innovative, fighting a permanent
struggle against bureaucratisation for the involvement of the people in
determining their destiny and in keeping with our concept of people-driven
processes of change.
Our
provincial and local government structures have a critical role to play towards
the realisation of these objectives, which must in practice become a defining
feature of our democracy.
Critical
to achieving what we have just said, is the degree to which there is greater
intra and intergovernmental co-ordination.
To this effect, we intend to increase our working relations with the
Departments of Finance, Expenditure and Economic Affairs and Environmental
Affairs & Tourism in promoting local economic development.
The
anti-poverty strategy as well as the Integrated Rural Development Strategy of
the Province, led by the hon Members, Ms Buthelezi-Phori and Mr Tate Makgoe,
respectively, requires that we increase our co-ordination in order to maximise
the impact on those two critical areas.
Partnerships
such as the ones we have with GTS and the Urban Upgrading Development Programme
(UUDP) on housing and our partnership with the University of the
Soon we will be
announcing the launch of the reactivated PROVLOC. A platform we are creating is to improve
better co-ordination, communication and synergy between provincial and local
government, including with provincial offices of national departments. Each of us in the
Executive Council will also have a specific forum to relate on a regular basis
with Local Government.
In our
area, we will create what has been styled MECLOGA (MEC/Local Government
Association), a forum aimed at promoting co-operative governance, consultation
and co-ordination, and participative decision-making with
The
transformation of Local Government is underway.
The Municipal Demarcation Board has finalised the determination of
Categories A, B and C municipalities.
There will be 20 local and five district municipalities for the
Province.
We
shall in the near future publish Section 12 Notices for the disintegration of
“old” municipalities and the establishment of new ones. We will be assisted and advised in this
regard by Facilitation Committees that will be established for that
purpose. We expect intense consultation
about the contents of these notices of new municipalities, the number of
part-time and full-time councillors and powers and functions of these new
municipalities.
The
Board is currently engaged in delimiting wards for the to-be established
municipalities. Comments and inputs by
role-players and stakeholders have been invited up to
In our
effort towards integrated service delivery and the ideal of the one-stop centre
concept, the Executive Council has approved seats of new District Councils as
follows:
·
Phuthaditjhaba/Qwaqwa (
·
Welkom (Goldfields),
·
Sasolburg (
·
·
Trompsburg (South).
In the
meantime, the Independent Electoral Commission is engaged in the registration
of voters for the forthcoming November 2000 municipal elections. We call upon all our people to ensure that
they are properly registered as voters, because that is going to determine the
allocation of the number of councillors in those areas. It is important that a maximum number of
people are registered, at least by
Other
key transformation issues underway, include the Municipal Structures Act (1998)
for the political restructuring of municipalities; the Municipal Systems Bill
(1999) for administrative change in municipalities; financial legislation for
municipalities which will include financial management and property tax; the
Disaster Management Bill which sets out the institutional framework for
disaster management in municipalities; and national and provincial legislation
to follow on the forthcoming White Paper on Traditional Affairs.
This year will see the launch of the
White Paper on Traditional Affairs and a repeal of former Qwaqwa and
In line with the
President’s Opening Address on
The
role of women in local government has often been understated and continues to
be relegated as an after-thought. There
are 212 women Councillors out of 1202 Councillors in the Province. There are only 8 female Mayors, 26 female
Deputy Mayors and 7 female Chairpersons of Executive Committees. Clearly this is not equitable. Women need to be empowered and I challenge
political parties led by the ANC to put more women on their candidates’ lists
for the forthcoming municipal elections.
The transformation of our
human resources and development is on course.
The Department has a service delivery improvement plan in place and it
is in accordance with the Batho Pele requirements. A Departmental Transformation Unit has been
established and is functional. Our Human Resource Development Plan will be
completed soon, once the Department has finalised its proposed organisational
structure.
We remain committed to
ensure that our officials are fully capacitated to perform their tasks with
vigour and enthusiasm so as to realize the implementation of our constitutional
obligations. Whilst the Department is
not ideally representative, measures are being taken to ensure representivity
in terms of gender, race and disability at all levels, consistently with our
policy as Government.
The
national budget allocation favours a bigger slice for Local Government. An amount of R500 million has been set aside
to promote restructuring initiatives:
R300 million for larger municipalities (metros); R150 million for
smaller municipalities and R50 million towards the improvement of financial
management.
An
amount of R28 billion is earmarked for the consolidated municipal
infrastructure programme whilst R238 million is destined for housing projects
in the Province.
My
Department is not only concerned with the financial capacity of municipalities,
but their institutional changes as well.
To this extent, the strengthening of the internal capacity of
municipalities, instead of the perceived “policing” through monitoring and
supervision, will be intensified. The Local
Government Sector Education and Training Authority (SETA), which will be
established in April 2000, will play a major role.
Project
Viability is a programme that started in the
As a last
resort we often have to invoke Section 139 of the Constitution as we have done
in Tweeling and Viljoenskroon. This
intervention has been reviewed in order to ensure that there is maximum
co-operation between all spheres of Government in supporting municipalities
that are in financial trouble. In the
case of the two TLCs mentioned here, we are glad to indicate that, for the
first time, they show a positive bank balance and we are in the process of
embarking on retreat.
*Poverty is a problem that exists all
over the country. The main thing is for
each Department to show commitment and a responsibility in minimising and
eradicating poverty. My Department is
making a big effort in finding ways of implementing decisions that have been
made to ensure that our people do not live in poverty, through different ways
of service delivery and the building of houses.
The
Executive Council of the
#Poverty is often associated with
disease, especially HIV/AIDS.
Communities are being depleted of adults. This affects our housing programme. Although no clear strategy exists as yet, we
are developing a co-ordinated awareness and education programme in association
with other Members of the Executive Council and other forums that have been
created.
Planning laws and policies are in
urgent need of transformation. The
Department is in a process of reformulating the planning and development laws
in an attempt to create legal uniformity and to redress the legal and
administrative chaos of Apartheid.
The Development
Facilitation Act (DFA) was intended to fast-track land release for various
developmental purposes. Work is however
underway to rewrite planning and development legislation at a provincial level. It is our intention, through this process, to
ensure that municipal planning and the function of regulating land development
is vested in the municipalities. To complement this, other processes of
formulating policies on erf sizes are undertaken, as well as the implementation
of mixed use of land.
The Department provides
support to municipalities to draw up land development objectives, which will be
followed by integrated development plans.
We continually call on our colleagues from other Departments to participate
fully in this process and thereby promote integrated development. The amalgamation of municipalities, as
concluded by the Demarcation Board, will mean that these land development
objectives will be reconciled to produce coherent plans, both at local and
district level.
As far as Government is
concerned, the responsibility for stimulating economic growth and job creation
is no longer reserved for the national or provincial spheres of
Government. One of the five key objects
of Local Government is the promotion of socio-economic development. Several municipalities have already devised
local economic development strategic plans.
Municipalities, therefore, need a clear vision for the local economy and
to work in partnership with local business to maximize job creation and
investment.
As part of our Job Summit commitments,
the National Cabinet approved a Local Economic Development Fund to the tune of
R1,5 million per accepted project. The Provincial Government and National
Government will work together to ensure the success of all projects and to
promote the local economy. Four
municipalities in the
Some areas affected by large-scale
retrenchments are experiencing economic decline. Government has initiated a Social Plan Fund
through which qualifying municipalities can conduct a local economic
regeneration study and also to develop early warning systems in the economic
environment. An amount of R50 000 has
been set aside for four municipalities in the Free State Gold Fields, namely
Disaster management forms part and
parcel of the planning process. The
These people often, if not always, have
no chance of replacing their losses through insurance claims or family
savings. A case in point is the recent
floods in Qwaqwa. As we speak, the
Disaster Management Committee of the Executive Council, after assessing flood
damage in the area, have agreed with the Premier to ask the Minister of
Provincial and Local Government, Cde Sidney Mafumahadi, to declare the area a
disaster area.
As our top priority, the Disaster
Management Committee is in the process of establishing an operations centre for
management of all disasters at provincial level. The centre will co-ordinate all disaster
management activities at a provincial level and serves as a point of entry for
communication. Resourceful personnel and
Information Centres will be devolved and established at all District Council
offices.
As a signatory to the
Habitat Agenda, the South African Government has the responsibility to
interpret the principles of the Habitat Agenda into our local situations and
monitor the implementation of our commitments to the agreement.
Local Agenda 21 aims to change the way
Local Governments are organised and operated to ensure that municipal services
can be sustained and equitably distributed between current and future
generations. There is a constant need
for exchange of ideas and a continuous learning process around this programme.
We are continuing the debates on
sustainable urban development and assessment of the implementation of the
Habitat Agenda. To this end, a special
session of the United Nations General Assembly (Habitat-5) will be held in
Sometime in 1998 and in preparation for
this session, the then Deputy President Thabo Mbeki, and the then Chancellor of
Germany, Mr Helmut Kohl, agreed to co-operate on sustainable development under
the framework of the Global Environmental Initiative (GEI), with Singapore and
Brazil as other partners. The outcome of
this co-operation is the global Conference - Urban 21, in
Locally,
Deliberations at this
Conference will assist African countries to prepare themselves for 2001
Habitat-5.
In support of the (Habitat) campaign
for secure tenure, we are developing a range of mechanisms both normative and
operational that will facilitate the physical and social consolidation of
secure tenure. The first and most
important cluster of policies, skills and activities will focus on the
promotion of efficient land markets.
This will include policy instruments and legislative guidelines, as well
as more technical components such as cadastration of urban land, registration
of titles and systems of record keeping.
Our commitment to develop rural areas,
serves as a basis on which we intend to satisfy the needs of the majority of
our people. It must be remembered that
in the
A substantial number of houses have
already been completed and occupied by beneficiaries. We have also approved the implementation of
an agri-village project, the first of its kind in the Province. We hope and believe that these pilot projects
will teach us the necessary lessons that can be replicated elsewhere. This is in line with the Government's
Sustainable Rural Development Programme.
The second cluster will focus on
improving shelter conditions by strengthening the capacity of municipalities to
work with community-based organisations, mobilising housing finance and
micro-lending, as well as promoting the use of sustainable building materials
and methods.
Turning
now to the Budget allocations per programme in our Department, the totals are
as follows:
|
Programme 1 (Administration
Management) |
R7 716 000 |
|
|
|
|
Programme 2 (Technical
Advisory Services) |
R3 495 000 |
|
|
|
|
Programme 3 (Spatial
Planning) |
R10 924 000 |
|
|
|
|
Programme 4 (Land
Use Administration) |
R6 933 000 |
|
|
|
|
Programme 5 (Housing) |
R14 681 000 |
|
|
|
|
Programme 6 (Housing
and Financing) |
R218 306 000 |
|
#Programme 7 (Urban
and Rural Planning) |
R68 101 000 |
|
|
|
|
Programme 8 (Local
Government Finance) |
R11 329 000 |
|
|
|
|
Programme 9 (Auxiliary
and Associated Services) |
R9 559 000 |
|
|
|
|
Programme 10 (Local
Government Establishment) |
R6 495 000 |
|
|
|
|
Programme 11 (Traditional
Affairs and Community Specific Services) |
R12 523 000 |
|
|
|
|
TOTAL |
R370 062 000 |
The rest of the Budget is as it stands.
In
conclusion, the UNDP’s 1999 Human Development Report, having evaluated the
contestation around globalisation, argues in the following manner with which I
believe the people of the
The
challenge of globalisation in the new century is not to stop the expansion of
global markets. The challenge is to find
the rules and institutions for stronger governance at local, national, regional
and global level to preserve the advantages of global markets and
competition. But it must also provide
enough space for human, community and environmental resources to ensure that
globalisation works for people, not just for profits. Globalisation with:
Ethics: less
violation of human rights, not more.
Equity: less
disparity within and between nations, not more.
Inclusion: less
marginalisation of people and countries, not more.
Human
security: less
instability of societies and less vulnerability of people, not more.
Sustainability: less
environmental destruction, not more.
Development: less
poverty and deprivation, not more.
Let me
express my gratitude to officials of my Department, Councillors and Council
officials, role-players and stakeholders in local government, and members of
this House for their support in the past, as well as their support in the
exciting challenges that lie ahead.
Special
mention goes to the Provincial Housing Development Board, the Townships Board
and the Local Government Transformation Forum comprising of FRELOGA, SAMWU,
IMATU, ILGM, IMFO, IMPP and relevant provincial Departments for their unfailing
support. It has been a privilege
watching all these people working together as a team.
Finally
let me conclude by citing the fifteenth century leader Colt, who said that when
the work of the best leaders is done, the people themselves say we have done it
ourselves. [Applause]
______________