/ 31 July 2007

Policy review of provincial, local govt launched

A policy review process, which includes questions on whether provincial government should even exist, was launched by Minister of Provincial and Local Government Sydney Mufamadi in Pretoria on Tuesday.

”We have to have a re-look at the way powers and functions have been distributed across the three spheres of government,” Mufamadi said.

The purpose of the ”rethink and refinement”, as Mufamadi called the policy review, was to determine whether provincial and local governments were an effective tool for service delivery.

”This process may lead us to legislative amendments and even constitutional amendments,” Mufamadi said.

To start the process, the Department of Provincial and Local Government would publish a set of 65 questions focusing on local and provincial government and even some questions on national government.

They would be published in the Government Gazette and in several newspapers throughout the week.

Ways to hold councillors accountable to local communities, how corruption could be tackled and how effective people’s local and district municipalities were in extending basic services are some of the questions to be answered on local government.

On provincial government, the questions include whether there should be a provincial system of government and, if it is retained, how many there should be, what the structure and functions would be and sources of funding.

The department hoped that questions would lead to public debate the issue and possibly lead to more questions being answered.

The feedback from the questions, which must be in written form and reach the department before the end of October, would then be used to draw up a green paper that would provide policy options on provincial government.

It would also be used to draw up a discussion document on local government.

This would then again be debated in public and would lead to a drawing up of a new policy on provincial and local government by the end of 2008. — Sapa