A merger of the Eastern and Western Cape could be good news for both provinces, Western Cape Premier Ebrahim Rasool said on Tuesday.
This would resolve the issues of shrinking allocations to the Western Cape and poor delivery in its neighbour, he told the provincial legislature.
”If the two provinces were combined, both would benefit from the poverty index and fiscal flows so that where people go for services can be kept functioning while the institutional capacity can be developed equitably,” he said.
His proposal follows suggestions from other senior African National Congress leaders, including Finance Minister Trevor Manuel and party chairperson Mosiuoa Lekota, that the number of provinces be reduced from the current nine.
Rasool said the starting point for the debate was perhaps not the number of provinces required, nor the issue of boundaries and election outcomes.
The debate, he said, had to be about provinces’ developmental role and planning at the level of functional regions.
The Eastern Cape, with its poverty and shortage of infrastructure, had a poverty index that correctly gave it increased fiscal transfers from the national fiscus.
This was despite the fact that a gap remained between this new money and the capacity for, and rate of, service delivery and institutional improvement.
What happened because of this gap was that the poor then used their own economic intelligence to migrate, and the money did not follow this cross-provincial migration.
The Western Cape, on the other hand, had a lower poverty index and therefore declining fiscal flows.
But its institutional capacities to deliver meant that the poor migrated to it, putting pressure on services.
”In the debate about the developmental role of provinces, we need to be robust,” Rasool said.
”Provinces cannot merely be an agency to deliver on health, education and welfare,” he said.
”It is out of such a debate that indeed the numbers and combination of provinces can be debated more intelligently.” — Sapa