The Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA), Dr Zweli Mkhize will undertake a visit to King Sabata Dalindyebo and Makana Municipalities in the Eastern Cape, from 02-04 May 2018, as part of the Back to Basics programme of supporting municipalities in distress in order to effect turnarounds.
The visit is part of Minister Mkhize’s programme of undertaking oversight and support visits to provinces to engage municipalities which face certain governance or service delivery challenges, working with the provincial governments.
The Constitution of the Republic envisaged that municipalities may struggle to independently execute their mandates. It then made a provision, in terms of Section 154(1) that national and provincial governments, by legislative and other measures, must support and strengthen the capacity of municipalities to manage their own affairs, and to execute their powers and to perform their functions.
The Minister met with MECs responsible for local government and traditional affairs in March and discussed the state of local government, focusing on municipalities categorized as financially distressed/dysfunctional. These are municipalities that are struggling to deliver on a number of their mandates and which are financially distressed. The COGTA MINMEC meeting resolved to prioritise the Financially Distressed and Dysfunctional municipalities and to identify practical and sustainable support and interventions measures.
The Ministerial Provincial visits will ensure that a common and collective programme for turning around these struggling municipalities is developed. The purpose of the provincial visit is mainly to engage these municipalities and understand the root causes of their challenges that makes it difficult for them to improve their performance, despite receiving numerous assistance from national and provincial CoGTA. The Eastern Cape Province priority municipalities are the following: King Sabata Dalindyebo, Makana, Walter Sisulu, Mnquma, Enoch Mgijima, Port St Johns, Amahlathi, Joe Gqabi, Mbizana and Matatiele.
The visit will have a particular emphasis on challenges related to service delivery infrastructure, financial management and governance.
Minister Mkhize recently announced that the status quo nationally is as follows;
• Seven percent of the country’s municipalities are classified as well-functioning
• About 31% of the municipalities are reasonably functional
• Thirty one percent are almost dysfunctional
• The remaining 31% is dysfunctional.
The visit on the 2-3 May will entail meetings with the leadership of the Provincial Government as well as that of OR Tambo District and King Sabata Dalindyebo Municipalities, a courtesy visit to the AbaThembu Kingship at Bumbane Great Place and the amaXhosa Kingship at Nqadu Great Place, a community meeting in Mqanduli as well as a courtesy meeting with the Provincial House of Traditional Leaders.
On the 4th of May, Minister Mkhize will, together with the provincial leadership meet with the Makana Municipality leadership in Grahamstown. The Minister will also hold talks with stakeholders, the business community and Rhodes University.
The Minister will meet with stakeholders during the visits as part of promoting cooperation to fix local government, under the theme Local Government is Everybody’s Business.
“Everything happens in a municipality and we need to work together to fix our municipalities so that they can perform better and deliver services to the communities they serve,†said Minister Mkhize.
Minister Mkhize met with black professionals on the 20th of April as part of mobilising professional support for support municipalities, under the same theme.
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