Issues in municipalities discussed at meeting with Mashatile

If government is to work, departments can no longer operate in silos. This is evident from Deputy President Paul Mashatile’s weekly meetings with ministers in the Government of National Unity (GNU).

The meetings are part of efforts to ensure that ministers follow a common programme of action to address service delivery challenges. Mashatile met with the ministers of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA) and Water and Sanitation to hear their strategies.

After his meeting with the Deputy President, the CoGTA minister highlighted the importance of good governance at municipal level.

“The DP wanted to ensure that we are heeding to the call of the president because for SA to work every municipality must work and this is very simple. Everybody lives in a certain municipality, if you want the economy to grow the atmosphere or the environment at the local government sphere must be good and thereby create job opportunities,” says CoGTA Minister Velenkosini Hlabisa.

The Auditor-General painted a bleak picture of municipalities and their compliance with audit standards last week.

“Our message is very clear there is no one who is not going to be functional and we are willing to give support we will monitor but once we’ve given support there must be delivery,” Hlabisa added.

The Minister of Water and Sanitation also met with the Deputy President.

“We met with the top 30 municipalities that are owing our water boards lot of money and we’ve agreed on the payment plan. Municipalities have historic debts as well as current debts, we said while we are still negotiating historic debt lets pay the current debt,” says Minister Pemmy Majodina.

The department is also assisting provincial governments and municipalities to address infrastructure challenges.

“We also talk with municipalities especially Gauteng municipalities who don’t have enough reservoirs. Illegal connections, leakages but also vandalism which is our main problem,” Majodina added.

“You know we used to have load shedding now we don’t want a new crisis, so we are proactive here, we are dealing with this issue of water before it becomes a crisis. The way we are intervening, it won’t become a crisis because of the proactive steps we are taking,” says Mashatile

The strength of the tripartite alliance has been called into question after a recent interview in which SACP General-Secretary Solly Mapaila spoke out against the GNU and the decision to form a GNU.

“We will meet with the communist party to hear them out, what are their worries, but from where we are with the minister the GNU is working,” Mashatile explains.

The deputy president also met with the Ministers of Defence, and Land Reform and Rural Development to hear their programmes of action, for dealing with the challenges their departments face.