Most municipalities are underspending and not delivering services because of a lack of capacity, Provincial and Local Government Minister Sydney Mufamadi said on Friday.
”For municipalities to increase the pace to redress the infrastructure backlog, quicker decision-making processes and more institutional capacity are needed,” he said.
The minister was addressing the media after meeting mayors and councillors at Gallagher Estate in Midrand.
To address the organisational capacity problem, Mufamadi said his department will deploy experts such as engineers and accountants to underperforming municipalities.
”A municipal infrastructure-support strategy will also be developed to address this problem.”
He also mentioned a lack of clarity of roles and responsibilities within municipalities as one of the other problems affecting service delivery.
”As a corrective measure, the department will develop the roles and responsibilities for infrastructure provisioning across all spheres of government.”
Following his meeting with people tasked with providing services to South Africans, Mufamadi said he supplied them with documents that will help them perform their duties properly and provide quality infrastructure.
”The objective of the document is to provide common understanding and instil the objectives and principles of sustainable municipal-infrastructure provision and service delivery.”
Also, the guidelines are aimed at ensuring that municipalities structure and manage their administrative, budgeting and planning processes accordingly, he said.
This, according to Mufamadi, will enable his department to reach its target of eradicating all bucket systems by December 2007 and the provision of water to all citizens by 2008.
He gave municipalities until the end of May to respond to his guideline documents. — Sapa