by Bonginkosi Masiwa

A time of protest

As we say goodbye to 2007 and look forward to the year that lies ahead, it must be acknowledged that service delivery-related protests are far from being a thing of the past.

This year has been rocked by sporadic community uprisings following in the pattern of the Khutsong Township riots, which were sparked by the incorporation of the Merafong local council into the North West Province instead of Gauteng.

The Demarcation Board is equally credited for the controversy in Matatiele in the Eastern Cape. Matatiele was incorporated into the Eastern Cape from KwaZulu-Natal on the eve of the local government elections in March 2006.

In the two cases cited above, the culprit was insufficient public participation and consultation. Seemingly, the principle that “the people shall govern” has been, in certain cases, observed more in breach than was originally envisaged.

The extent and level to which representative democracy must be accompanied by public participation and broad consultation is becoming increasingly fuzzy.

As if the pandemonium in Khutsong and the chaos in Matatiele were not enough, on national Heritage Day Pretoria was marred by a series of violent protests over poor service delivery.
Related protests also rocked Johannesburg’s Soweto and Kliptown suburbs. Among the primary demands by residents were housing and improved access to water and sanitation.

In one case, the violence resulted in the murder of local ANC officials and a councillor whom the protesters in the Free State felt were not doing enough for them. Port Elizabeth was also rocked by protests over similar grievances.

Protest ripples were also felt in the Western Cape where the Anti-Eviction Campaign threatened to encourage poor communities to abstain from voting during election time - citing the lack of decent service delivery, especially housing, as reasons.

The Anti-Eviction Campaign embarked on a no-land, no-house, no-vote policy in the Western Cape while in Johannesburg municipal workers also threatened to go on strike in September. So much for a single year in the new democratic dispensation!

Another highlight for 2007 was the annual Salga conference during which President Thabo Mbeki pleaded with councillors to adopt different approaches to planning, as integrated development plans (IDPs) were not generating the desired developmental outcomes.

In that instance he was making specific reference to plans that deal with the apartheid spatial settlement patterns and attempts to create sufficiently inclusive communities with people living next to where they work.

According to Mbeki, housing must be used as a catalyst to integrate communities separated by apartheid. Local government must also intervene in ways that direct private sector investment in local areas so that job opportunities are created. Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) has already warned that current fertility and mortality trends indicate that the size of South Africa’s labour force is growing fast and specific measures need to be taken to ensure that this group is effectively deployed. A rather disappointing outcome of the Salga conference was that in spite of the whining over poor public participation, the conference merely paid lip service to the importance of ward committees as bridging the gap between communities and local government. No concrete suggestions were made on how this vital structure could be strengthened.

On a positive note, according to Statistics SA, in its Community Survey 2007, life is improving steadily in the area of housing and basic service delivery. About 70.5% of households now live in formal dwellings, reflecting what Statistics SA has called a “steady increase” from 64.4% in the 1996 census, and 68.5% in 2001. The proportion of households with access to piped water has grown from 84.5% in 2001 to 88.6 % this year, with the Western Cape leading the pack with a figure of 98.9%.

Households still using bucket toilets have also decreased, although just over 8% of people still had no access to any toilet facility.

Use of electricity as the main energy source for lighting increased from 69.7% in 2001 to 80% this year. It is, however, noteworthy that the Eastern Cape registered the least improvement in this regard with just under two thirds of households having access to electricity.

These improvements have partly been attributed to the success of Project Consolidate, whose cycle was coming to an end during the year.

Another Project Consolidate success story is that of the Gert Sibande District Municipality, one of the three district municipalities in Mpumalanga where the sanitation conditions were recorded to have improved greatly for the 13 000 households formerly using the bucket system.

Some more good news was generated by the State of the Cities Finances Report 2007, which indicated that South Africa’s nine cities were showing “improved financial stability” and an “increasing ability to tackle the challenges” of service delivery to the rich and poor households in their respective communities.

More bad news was the failure of certain municipalities to spend budgetary allocations despite serious service delivery backlogs.

Reportedly, of the R128 billion meant to be spent in the 283 municipalities across the country, about half never reaches the intended beneficiaries.

In the Eastern Cape, only 26% of the R1.52bn budget allocation had been spent by the middle of the financial year. It has been reported that the province is set to lose over R443 million from its housing budget as a result of the failure to spend.

According to the parliamentary housing portfolio committee, lack of capacity and poor performance are the reasons for the failure to spend.

Vacancies of key positions are still unfilled in most municipalities, and the problem of under-qualified personnel still persisted in 2007. As much as that is a problem, it is also critical to ensure that committed administrators are appointed.

Overall, it can be asserted that the number of people with access to basic services has edged upwards partly as a result of the introduction of interventions such as Project Consolidate.  Revenue collection and municipal billing systems in the 12 municipalities identified as pilot sites are said to have increased by, on average, 21.4 %, and it has allowed participating municipalities to provide new services, particularly to communities that did not have access to such services.

Government indicates that public confidence and attitudes toward payment for municipal services have also improved.

Regarding public participation, perhaps one of the most important events of 2007 was the DPLG-initiated process to review the White Paper on Local Government and come up with a White Paper for Provincial Government.

Government must be commended for increased public participation in the policy process, for instance in its calling upon civil society to make submissions on the 65 questions posed by the minister for deliberation.

Government says the process is aimed at helping it deliver quality services. We can only hope that the final outcome of the process will contribute to an improvement in the governance practice at local level and that partnerships between the state and civil society will continue well into the new year and beyond.  

Finally, another milestone in the local government environment was the fact that the Consolidation of Municipal Transformation Programme (CMTP) that aims to strengthen local democracy, capacity building and pro-poor service delivery, this year presented the Intergovernmental Relations Toolkit at the 10th anniversary celebrations of the National Council of Provinces.

The CMTP acknowledged that intergovernmental relations are important for any development project’s successful completion. There have been some gains in service delivery as a result of IGR. However there is still a need for greater “co-ordinated action” and the IGR Toolkit will hopefully strengthen relations and assist officials and politicians in all three spheres of government to achieve this.

It is hoped that 2008 will see further intergovernmental co-operation that will impact positively on service delivery and hence pre-empt future violent protests.

The Local Government Transformer Dec 2007/Jan 2008