Municipalities are failing residents, says KZN premier
Municipalities in KwaZulu-Natal are failing their residents. That was the stark message from Premier Sihle Zikalala, speaking at the provincial government lekgotla, in Mayville, Durban, on Wednesday, February 16.
He told mayors and deputy mayors from across the province that a survey by StatsSA had found that 60% percent of residents are unhappy with the services provided by their local municipalities.
Water and sanitation, electricity supply problems, clinics, affordable housing, crime and corruption and road maintenance were among the issues raised by those surveyed.
Zikalala said the survey was only one of many indicators over the past 10 years which underlined “the weakening state of service delivery across all levels of government”.
Last year, ahead of the local government elections, the Department of Co-operative Governance
and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) assessed the performance of 54 municipalities in KZN.
Among the challenges identified included a backlog in the provision of essential services, like water and electricity, a problem made worse by municipalities having to deal with ageing and dilapidated infrastructure and not having enough money for repairs and maintenance.
In some areas, including Pietermaritzburg, there have been violent community protests about water stoppages or disruptions and disconnection of illegal electrical supplies.
Other issues included high water and electricity losses and slow grant expenditure on capital projects.
Zikalala said Cogta had also found that many municipalities were continuing to adopt unfunded budgets or approving budgets that did not provide adequately for operations and maintenance, leading to dilapidated infrastructure not being repaired.
“There were also elements of
low revenue collection, coupled with the low grant expenditure, which is an indication of the absence of [the] requisite capacity to implement and deliver,” the premier added.
“High levels of incorrect billing, which results in poor collection rates, and non-payment by national and provincial sector departments for services rendered by municipalities add to the problem.”
Cogta also highlighted a regression in audit outcomes, the slow pace in the institution of consequence management, the absence of a rates base in traditional areas, where services are provided, and the unaffordable salary bill of many municipalities.
“We have seen ineffective oversight by councillors over the administration leading to repeated adoption of unfunded budgets, no improvement in audit outcomes, and low grant expenditure,” Zikalala said.
“There was the slow or non-implementation of findings of forensic reports and section 106 findings and weak relations with traditional leaders, who are not fully involved in planning for service delivery in their areas.
“Indeed, a number of municipalities are currently struggling with implementing the municipal standard chart of accounts (mSCOA) programme as set by the National Treasury.
“With this background, emerging trends in the audit outcomes in municipalities are not impressive, with several regressions recorded and some unchanged in performance from previous statuses.
“It is clear that with the recent local government elections, all new councillors need to be inducted to apply effective oversight on these matters.”
Zikalala said all the matters identified in the
Cogta assessment had to be attended to on either a short, medium or longterm basis. In addition, there had to be severe consequences for any new unfunded budgets.
“At the same time municipal revenue collection should be improved alongside increased efficiency in the use of the conditional grants,” he added.
“In our context where millions of our people, including women, the youth and disabled, are unemployed and facing hunger and poverty, the people of KwaZulu-Natal expect this gathering to come up with plans to create jobs, support enterprise development and improve their skills.
“We dare not linger. We cannot afford to betray the hopes of our people and make them doubt the democratic experience.”