New metro chiefs urged to peform... or else

Minister for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Des van Rooyen. File picture: Itumeleng English

Minister for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Des van Rooyen. File picture: Itumeleng English

Published Jun 10, 2016

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Pretoria - Perform or else, Cooperative Governance Minister Des van Rooyen warned incoming municipal leaders on Thursday.

Lukewarm and poor performance by municipal managers and councillors would not be tolerated in the next local government term, he said.

The minister also blasted councillors who didn't take their jobs seriously and accused them of treating their public responsibility as a “by the way” issue.

He told the 10th Municipal Managers Forum in Centurion that such conduct was negatively affecting the quality of service delivery.

The event, which ends on Friday, is hosted by the SA Local Government Association (Salga) in preparation for the August 3 municipal polls.

The theme is, “Managing a Transition”. It is directed at sitting municipal managers and those who will take the highest administrative offices after the polls.

The forum is aimed at giving managers an opportunity to share municipal innovations and good practices to improve the sector.

The city managers came in for some stick for prematurely terminating contracts of municipal employees through golden handshakes.

But Van Rooyen also turned up the heat on accounting officers; saying city managers would be preoccupied with managing the transition for the new political dispensation in their municipalities for the next local government term.

In that regard, the minister warned them to guard against dishing out golden handshakes as this would rob local government of means of delivering basic services to residents.

“Municipalities should also rid themselves of the dependency syndrome and be proactive in revitalising their local economies,” he said.

“Economic developments at local government level ought to be elevated in line with the national government’s 'back to basics' programmes.”

The performance of municipalities across the country was hamstrung by a severe lack of suitable skills, van Rooyen said.

He also identified a need to have more women in managerial positions at municipalities.

“As the department, we are on the same page with Salga when it comes to the delivery of basic services,” he said.

The minister disclosed that talks were ongoing with Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula on how to channel more funds to Salga for sports development at local government level.

Salga head George Xolile took stock of the performance of local government in the past 15 years.

Without mentioning names, Xolile said 34% of all municipalities in the country hadn't improved since the 2010/11 financial year.

Another 13 % of municipalities had in fact regressed since that period, he said.

“Contract managements remain a key challenge for these municipalities,” he said.

The capital city's municipal manager Jason Ngobeni touched on municipal border demarcation, which came under the spotlight at the conference and in the build-up to the elections.

He said that the Tshwane metro council was the best example of how not to do a municipal merger.

He was referring to the confusion when several municipalities were disestablished in 2011 and merged to form the third biggest metro in the world.

Ngobeni said the Municipal Demarcations Board needed to take into account the implications of mergers between economically viable municipalities and those struggling financially.

The board has since announced a stakeholders’ conference during which demarcation issues would be discussed.

The city's metro council was merged with several municipalities that were economically unviable and was forced to subsidise the provision of basic services to those areas.

To accommodate those areas, the city’s capital expenditure went up by R2 billion, with the operating expenditure now standing at R3bn, Ngobeni told delegates.

Statistician-General Pali Lehohla said statistics were able to strengthen decision-making at municipal level.

The Census statistics, to be released on June 28, would provide further evidence against which residents could judge local government, he said.

There had been improvements in basics services delivered by municipalities, he said.

The event came in the wake of the auditor-general's report of municipal audit results for the fiscal year 2014/15, which painted a bleak picture of management of municipalities' finances across the country.

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