South African Deputy President Jacob Zuma has urged the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) to exercise strong oversight of local governments to improve service delivery as a matter of national importance.
Speaking at an NCOP workshop in Cape Town on Monday focusing on challenges facing the council, provincial legislatures and the South African Local Government Association (Salga) in promoting cooperation between different levels of the government, Zuma highlighted the fact that local governments are at the forefront of service delivery to local communities, but have been found wanting in this key area of economic development.
“The tasks of municipalities require, among other things, that they directly include communities within processes of municipal governance, utilise resources for socio-economic development within their municipal area and extend service delivery to redress the legacy of inequality by meeting basic needs,” Zuma observed.
“Local government is positioned as a key site for service delivery and is a catalyst for local economic development in the next decade. Therefore, this should put a lot of pressure to bear on Salga to improve on the manner in which municipalities have been conducting their business.
“During the massive door-to-door campaign conducted during the elections, the majority of households complained about poor municipal service delivery, which included inferior water and electricity service provision and poor customer care, which included inaccurate billing systems.
“We can do all we can to make municipalities successful financially, but if we do not get the basic customer care or ‘Batho Pele’ issues right, ordinary citizens will continue to say the local government sphere is failing them.”
While acknowledging that some local governments are already examining ways of meeting these challenges, Zuma said the NCOP is best suited to perform an oversight role to ensure that municipalities fulfil the expectations of residents.
Provinces should also assist in improving services, he added, “thereby providing the seamless efficient service provision from spheres of government simultaneously, with Parliament, especially the NCOP, being the eyes and ears of the public”.
Since the NCOP as an institution brings together the national, provincial and local governments into a single structure, he believes it provides a mechanism for improving cooperation between all governmental spheres, and for ensuring the responsiveness of national government to provincial and local government matters.
He stressed that the NCOP, in this regard, also plays a critical oversight role in terms of executive action.
In December 2000, South Africa restructured its local government system through which 843 local authorities were transformed into 284 democratically elected municipalities throughout the country. — I-Net Bridge