by Peter Kimemia

President Thabo Mbeki, during his State of the Nation address in February 2006, pointed out that the integration of development planning and implementing across the three spheres of government would be a prime area of focus during the current term of local government. This was in recognition of the fact that achieving efficient service delivery is largely dependent on a good working relationship between national, provincial and local spheres of government.

There is indeed a lot to be gained from running a cohesive and well-co-ordinated system that avoids harmful competition and costly duplication of effort. Such a system should be able to, among other things, utilise available human capital effectively and settle disputes constructively in a time- and cost-saving manner.

The Intergovernmental Relations Framework (IGRF) Act of 2005, designed to ensure that policies and activities across all spheres of government encourage service delivery, lists a number of forums and structures aimed at facilitating an efficient co-operative government. Primary among these is the National Council of Provinces (NCOP), which was meant to represent provinces and ensure that their interests are taken into account in the national sphere of government .

At its inception, it was hoped that NCOP would help deepen democratic governance and oversee equitable and enhanced service delivery. This it does by participating in the national legislative process and providing a national forum for public consideration of issues affecting the provinces. The latter involves the Taking Parliament to the People sessions, which bring together many political and executive members of the government into a forum with ordinary citizens for discussion and debate of key development issues.

As it celebrated its 10th anniversary in early May 2007, NCOP received President Mbeki’s commendation for what he described as the institution’s “inspirational role” in the creation of a new South Africa during the decade of its existence. NCOP, which is also referred to as the second house of Parliament, has been a primary institution of the democratic state and has helped people retain their faith in the state. The president partly credited NCOP with the “palpable improvement in people’s living conditions”. Its role in this regard has been taken as indicative of a determination to effectively address the historical challenges which condemned the majority of the citizens to marginalisation.

Citing a study by Markinor and Stellenbosch University, the president noted that 95 percent of the people interviewed were both proud to be South Africans, and believed in the democratic system of governance. Additionally, the majority reportedly was confident that both the country and its democratic system were going to develop positively in the future. What the study implies is that most of the people surveyed were satisfied that the country was evolving in the right direction.

Much of the pride in being South African is in large measure attributable to the quality of democracy, towards which NCOP has made an immense contribution.  Arguably, the challenge for NCOP now is sustaining this pride by fostering and strengthening intergovernmental relations towards enhanced social transformation with a focus on education, health and social development. Another key challenge relates to social economic development, specifically through the integrated development planning model, as well as the promotion of small businesses.

For its part, NCOP, through its Programme 2009, envisages increased oversight work which is guided by inputs from the provinces and local government regarding their needs and interests. The council also seeks to promote public participation with a clear impact on service delivery and the work of Parliament. Programme 2009 further envisages improved support to local government programmes at municipal level, as well as improved intergovernmental relations as a result of NCOP’s sustained contribution to building a co-operative government system.

According to Minister for Provincial and Local Government Sydney Mufamadi, national departments are required to formulate sectoral master plans outlining goals for local spheres. It is, however, not clear whether these master plans are being formulated in close consultation with key actors in local government.  Such consultations are imperative if we are to avoid unhelpful turf wars, which are often waged at the expense of service delivery.

Overall, the strategy envisioned by the minister is meant to institutionalise and deepen the norm of co-operative governance, and to create synergy between national social development plans (NSDP), provincial growth and development strategies (PDGS) and integrated development plans (IDPs). Already the growing co-operation among the three spheres of government is being credited for improvement in the quality of municipal IDPs. Even so, a lot more remains to be done, as municipal IDPs are sometimes not reflective of the actual developmental intentions of their respective municipalities.

Often these IDPs betray a slide towards an exercise in formalities, associated with a desire to avoid censure for non-compliance. Consequently, there is a real danger of this important process of development planning being reduced to a sham, and ending up producing tired and vacuous wish lists just to comply with reporting procedures.

Seemingly, NCOP has its work cut out for it, as trying to keep IDPs relevant, meaningful and dynamic enough will definitely be one of its critical endeavors. The ongoing inter-sphere co-operation has helped identify interventions and support measures which are needed to capacitate both local and provincial governments’ critical skills.  Mufamadi quite rightly observed that good laws and fiscal allocations alone did not automatically grow the economy or banish poverty. The ability to enforce adherence to the letter and spirit of the law, as well as ensuring efficient use of resources, are crucial to the attainment of government’s strategic goals.

Over the past 10 years under NCOP’s watch, government has been able to increase the number of people who have shelter, as well as those with access to basic services such as water, electricity and sanitation. Expenditure on social development, education and health has progressively increased, while the child support grant has been expanded in terms of the number of beneficiaries. Currently, government is providing social assistance to more than seven million children. At least 2,6 million children are getting free education at about 7 600 schools across the country .

There have also been numerous progressive reforms. For instance, the National Health Act of 2003 partly suggested a role for the provinces in the provision of primary health care. This tends to relieve some of the burden that has previously been borne by municipalities. But it also calls for a stricter monitoring of the envisaged changes by NCOP to ensure that patients are accorded a significantly superior service.

It is not uncommon to encounter  depressingly indifferent service from key public health care facilities. Grey and Bhisho Hospitals within the Buffalo City Municipality are notorious in this regard. Sadly, while a lot is being done at the top to ensure efficient service delivery, on the ground good-intentioned policies are being seriously undermined, probably due to lack of proper supervision and outright ineptitude in some cases.

Quite often in our society, the problem is not that communities are deliberately starved of resources. Rather, it is our inability to implement policies to the letter, along with our unique capacity to accept and excuse poor service delivery. There are just too many of us sleeping on the job and managing to get away with it.

Therefore, in order to consolidate and sustain the current economic growth momentum and its positive spin-offs, NCOP will need to strengthen its watchdog role and continue holding the executive and its administrative branches to account for the functional integrated system of government.  Ultimately, qualified and dedicated personnel are key to ensuring efficiency in our co-operative governance system. Well thought out pieces of legislation and policies will only remain a reflection of our good intentions, but seldom an actual experience for the intended beneficiaries, if we do not fix our capacity problems.

The Local Government Transformer Vol. 13 No. 3 Jun/Jul 2007