On 31 May 2011 the Acting Minister for the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA) presented his budget speech to Parliament. He reflected on the progress made by his department in the last financial year, focussing on the department’s response to the report prepared by the Ad-Hoc Committee in Service Delivery. He advised that the department would be working closely with the Provinces in developing a response to the challenges and weaknesses in local government stated in the report, especially those relating to governance, corruption, service delivery, finance and communication and sectoral inputs.

Priorities for the coming year include the following:

• A commitment by the department for ensuring that the incoming councillors accelerate implementation of the Local Government Turnaround Strategies; that the new councillors will be supported to be strong leaders in the “programme of turning around our municipalities into effective, efficient, responsive and accountable institutions of government, as expected by our people”.
• Despite noting that access to services has improved specifically with regard to the provision of water, sanitation, electricity and refuse removal and the infrastructure that goes with it, the Acting Minister committed to further improvements in these areas, especially in rural areas.
• The capacity of wards will be strengthened with a view to enhancing meaningful public participation and strengthened local level democracy through intensified community and civil society engagement.
• The department will develop a Green Paper on Cooperative Governance and a Review of the Local Government White Paper in the coming year to strengthen coordination across the three spheres of government.
• The Municipal Property rates Amendment Bill, the National Traditional Affairs Bill and the Monitoring Support and Intervention Bill will be introduced to Parliament in 2011/12.
• The new Department of Traditional Affairs will work to transform and integrate the institution of traditional leadership into the democratic governance system.

The ECD sector has a unique opportunity to grasp the space provided by the proposed local government capacity-building and participation processes to ensure that the incoming councillors are aware of their obligations to young children and know how best to realise those obligations. Advocacy initiatives in this regard could be designed so as to operate in partnership with the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs at both a national and provincial level as well as directly with councillors at a local level. It is critical that the national and provincial COGTA departments recognise and include the ECD local government elements in their various capacity-building interventions and road shows; the ECD sector ought to guide them in this regard. The time is opportune to set up meetings with the Department to ensure ECD is a priority issue in the design and implementation of the priority plans for 2011/12.

WEB LINKS FOR THIS ARTICLE

View a copy of the Acting Minister’s speech.