Parliament, Saturday, 19 October 2024 – The Portfolio Committee on Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA) commended the South African Local Government Association’s (SALGA) good audit outcome on Friday.
Other entities—the Municipal Demarcation Board and the Commission for Cultural Linguistic and Religious Rights—briefed the committee on their annual reports for the 2023/34 financial year and were congratulated on their performance.
In discussing SALGA’s performance, the committee noted the need for clean audits to translate into community satisfaction: “Clean audits are just the beginning and not the end of the road, so we must move further for municipalities to deliver services to the satisfaction of our people.”
The committee also raised serious concerns about councillors’ lack of skills and understanding of municipal legislation. In an earlier briefing, SALGA told the committee that 26% of councillors in the country do not have a matric qualification, yet they decide over multi-million-rand municipal budgets. The committee viewed this as a major challenge and noted that SALGA has a big role in improving governance in municipalities.
The committee heard that in the 2023/24 financial year, SALGA trained 4 514 municipal councillors and officials in 32 programmes to improve decision-making, governance and service delivery in 202 municipalities. The committee noted this as encouraging since sound leadership is critical in providing communities with the needed services.
The committee noted with concern the politicisation of local government and flagged the impact of labour disputes on service delivery. It also wanted to know about efforts to professionalise the local government sector. Mr Thamsanqa Ngubane, an executive committee member of SALGA, told the committee that an all-sided conversation on what makes a fit and proper councillor and municipal official is needed.
He said the community, political parties and the administration must be on board for this. He said SALGA can train people, but political parties deploy them. “We must ensure that political parties protect the public service and the community from substandard practitioners. So, what is missing in the conversation is political parties. The conversation should start there if we want to talk about a fit and proper person.”
Dr Mkhize noted this and said committee members are all from political parties and can start raising the issue within their parties. “We have access to all political parties, and we should discuss the issue of minimum criteria in our parties so that those democratically elected have minimum capabilities to operate as effective public representatives. That way, the skills and levels of education will not be counted as a factor in poor performance of government institutions.”
The committee acknowledged SALGA as its partner and said information should be shared to see how municipalities can be improved. It also noted the MDB’s performance. The MDB’s audit opinion regressed to an unqualified opinion with findings due to material misstatements on its financial statements.
The committee heard that the entity has instituted corrective measures, and a Post-Audit Action Plan has been developed and is being implemented. The MDB’s finding raised issues such as incomplete financial statements and issues with petty cash, as no reconciliations were done.
The committee urged the MDB to fix the small things. “A much higher standard of financial management is expected in an organisation of this size,” said Dr Mkhize. “Your audit issues should not involve mundane issues like the inability to keep accurate petty cash records. These are basics, even for a small organisation. So, clean that up, as it does not look good to be corrected on the small things.”
The committee also raised concerns about frequent delimitations that inconvenience communities, stating that such small things can become big issues with time. It also noted the CRL’s important role and commended the entity for its work. “Your work goes to the core of South Africans’ diversity, on tolerance, respect and understanding of our languages and cultures,” the Chairperson said.
The entity was urged by the committee to do more to recognise and uplift all Khoisan languages and bring them into the mainstream.
ISSUED BY THE PARLIAMENTARY COMMUNICATION SERVICES ON BEHALF OF THE CHAIRPERSON OF THE PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE ON COOPERATIVE GOVERNANCE AND TRADITIONAL AFFAIRS, DR ZWELI MKHIZE.
For media enquiries or interviews with the Chairperson, please contact the committee’s Media Officer:
Name: Alicestine October
Cell: 083 665 4345
Email: aoctober@parliament.gov.za
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