Accountability pledge at last
THE Bhisho political leadership was in Nelson Mandela Bay last Friday. They appeared to seek to tackle this year by way of a totally new approach, that is engaging the stakeholders candidly.
Thus, they looked more confident in their intentions for the year.
Premier Phumulo Masualle’s team appeared to be ready to confront the social and economic debilitating challenges of the province.
He gave the impression that he was not in the mood to sweep any issues under the carpet.
He was prepared to touch on all the problems that affected all municipalities.
He wishes to engage openly with all stakeholders, business, civic organisations, community associations and political parties.
In his corner he was supported by seven MECs and the heads of almost all departments, all of whom sat on their chairs and listened till the end.
For the first time we saw government officials taking citizens seriously, instead of being defensive, dismissive, arrogant and mocking the intelligence of ordinary people, a culture that was assuming permanency in the corridors of power.
The meeting was billed as the Premier’s Business Sector Engagement Session.
We were told that it was the premier’s mission to run some mini state of the province addresses in three regions of the Eastern Cape, that would culminate in his state of the province address in Bhisho in but a few weeks’ time.
This time around the session targeted mainly business and local government leaders.
A broad crosssection of business leaders was in attendance, from small, medium and big businesses, mainly by invitation.
A document containing the state of municipal finances was tabled at the session.
The document describes its purpose as being “to provide the members of the Premier’s Coordinating Forum (PCF) with an overview on the state of finances and financial performance amongst municipalities in the Eastern Cape for the 2016-17 financial year”.
The meeting was also given an overview of the total operating and capital revenue expenditure.
It was shown that the total revenue generated by municipalities up to June 30 last year was R38.3-billion.
The amount showed a shortfall of R2.5-billion on the adjusted budget.
It was also shown that the municipalities were not collecting all revenues for services provided, especially from households, “due to the large numbers of indigents”.
This non-recovery of expenditure leaves the municipalities with a deficit of R4.3-billion in revenue collection.
The municipalities mentioned as recording negative balances included Alfred Nzo, Great Kei, Joe Gqabi and four other smaller ones.
This non-payment was explained on the basis that these municipalities with small revenue bases were mainly in rural areas.
During the financial year in question, it is reported that the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality was allocated R466.4-million for a public transport network grant.
Of that amount, only R22.9-million was utilised (6.1%), according to the report.
It laments this underspending: “This is the major contributor to the underspending”.
The Buffalo City Metro is also guilty of underspending allocated funds for infrastructure.
It spent only R12-million of the R30-million allocated to it.
The excuse here was that it was “due to slow procurement and tendering process”.
Mahlubandile Qwase, the programme director, kickstarted the day’s proceedings by inviting the premier to map the objective of the session, and laid down some few points that he said needed to be tackled and to be achieved.
He said he wanted to sharpen the journey going forward.
He warmly welcomed the private sector’s involvement in what he described as “business in its diverse nature”.
With this engagement, “we aimed to enhance our planning programme in order to deal with the high unemployment, poverty and inequality”, he said.
He called on the private sector to partner with both the local and provincial governments, to enhance economic benefits that could emanate from a wellstructured and functioning relationship between public and private sectors.
The premier spoke about the government’s aim of assisting and speeding up small and medium enterprises by procuring government services and goods from local businesses.
He promised that 30% of government procurement would go to local suppliers that should be paid within 30 days of completing the work and invoicing for payment.
In the documents presented to the session it was made clear that “there is a general lack of adherence to existing policies and procedures, especially in supply chain management and corporate governance”.
This was highly prevalent and was resulting in unauthorised, irregular and fruitless and wasteful expenditure.
Among the reasons for this was that “in some municipalities the supply chain management units are headed by staff that lack the necessary skills and competence”.
Bid committees were also said to be manned by people without the necessary experience to discharge their responsibilities.
We were told that “even in other areas in the budget and treasury offices, officials are appointed to positions for which they do not have the required skills and competencies”.
The other speakers included MECs Sakhumzi Somyo and Mlibo Qoboshiyane, and councillor Andrew Whitfield.
The participation and engagement of the audience was equally productive.
The best thing about the session was to see that after a long time of hoping to steamroll people, the politicians have realised for them to silence their critics, they have to correct the problems.
That attitude was tacitly couched in the premier’s closing remarks, when he challenged people not to hold back on issues where they felt the government was falling short on expectation.
The feeling with which I left the session was that at long last we will or may see some semblance of public accountability and responsibility from public servants.