The Portfolio Committee on Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs on Tuesday agreed to introduce weekly and quarterly monitoring of its resolutions to ensure that municipalities, government departments and other institutions it oversees respond adequately and in a timely manner to matters the committee raise.
This resolution tracker must accompany the agenda of every meeting and be updated continuously. It will be reviewed quarterly and will enable committee members to determine which reports are outstanding, enable the committee to send reminders, receive responses and decide on further action for non-compliance. The tracker will record the date and source of each committee resolution, the directives and actions required, deadlines for submissions and progress updates. It will include separate sections for committee resolutions, oversight visits, correspondence and legislation.
Members noted that the success and value of this tracker will depend on whether there is sustained follow-up and accountability. Referring to oversight visits to several provinces where it engaged with distressed municipalities, committee members said much of the information they requested during some of these visits remains outstanding for several months, despite numerous reminders.
Examples cited included information the committee requested from the Walter Sisulu and Sundays River Valley local municipalities. Members said a lack of follow-up and ensuring compliance risks turning its oversight work into a talk shop where problems are identified without the committee being able to monitor whether corrective action followed.
The Chairperson of the committee, Dr Zweli Mkhize, said municipalities were informed during engagements of the specific actions required and the deadlines for submitting information. The difficulty was therefore not necessarily a lack of clarity, but the committee’s ability to track and enforce compliance consistently.
“The responsibility of municipalities to respond to the committee and submit reports within the timelines provided is non-negotiable,” he said. “Now that we have the tracking system, it is a very important step forward. It is a tool that will help us look back and see what is outstanding.”
The committee agreed that outstanding undertakings must be entered into the tracker immediately after a meeting or oversight engagement. Members noted that this should not be delayed until the relevant oversight report is formally adopted. In the meantime, the committee must review all oversight reports and meeting recordings to check what actions are still outstanding. Then, within approximately a month, it must compile a consolidated report of all the information the committee requested, reminders issued, responses received and institutions that have not complied.
The tracker will also use a colour-coded system in which long-overdue matters will be marked in red to draw committee members’ attention to them, while completed actions and resolved matters will be reflected in green.
The committee also agreed on an escalation process. Reminders will be directed not only to the relevant municipality but also to the relevant provincial Member of the Executive Council responsible for local government. “We need to make sure that whatever requests for information or directives are issued to municipalities are also communicated to the MEC, so that the MEC can ensure that those reports are brought to us,” the Chairperson said.
“If the lower structure does not respond, we go to the higher structure to ensure that what was expected is done. A reminder, a letter to the MEC and a letter to the Minister should help us identify the few municipalities where we are dealing with real intransigence rather than simply a communication problem.”
Where repeated instructions, reminders and escalation do not result in compliance, the committee will consider further action, including seeking guidance from Parliament’s legal services. Members emphasised that such action must be supported by a clear record showing what was requested, when it was communicated, who received it and what follow-up steps were taken. Members acknowledged that the committee’s workload and intensive programme put pressure on its administrative and oversight work but agreed this could not be allowed to weaken accountability.
Alicestine October
22 September 2026
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