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Programmes
Municipal Infrastructure Grant (MIG)
The MIG, introduced in 2004/05, is the largest infrastructure transfer programme administered by the Department of Cooperative Governance.
The MIG funds are distributed to all municipalities based on a formula that accounts for existing backlogs in service delivery as well as the functions assigned to individual municipalities.
Spending on the MIG increased from R5,9 billion in 2006/07 to R9,1 billion in 2008/09. This reflects an improvement in municipalities' ability to spend on infrastructure. As at December 2009, the department had assisted 46 district and six metropolitan municipalities to develop comprehensive infrastructure plans that guide the building, rehabilitation and maintenance of economic and social infrastructure in their geographical areas.
In February 2010, local government equitable share received a further R6,7 billion to support municipalities to cushion poor households against the rising cost of electricity and water. An additional R2,5 billion was allocated for the MIG.
Total allocations to municipalities rose from R55 billion in 2009/10 to R78 billion in 2012/13.
The Department of Cooperative Governance, together with other stakeholders, including state departments, state-owned entities (SOEs) and professional bodies undertook a process to revise and update the Industry Guide 2007 and developed a 2009/10 version. This document, An Industry Guide – Infrastructure Service-Delivery Levels and Unit Costs 2009/10, aims to:
- reflect the broad stakeholder inputs and adoption of infrastructure unit standards and costs
- address regional/provincial and sectoral/industry-related cost values, as well as to allow for national impacts such as variance in labour rates, fuel and transport cost, material and other related factors
- align the associated infrastructure construction costs within the changed market conditions to reflect the escalation since 2007
- ensure that infrastructure types such as sport facilities are incorporated into the revised guide document.
The overall objective of the guide is to develop a practical nationwide system of guidance for municipalities, their service-providers and government in terms of the provision of basic infrastructure service provision cost values that reflect national and regional impacts, and provide comparative value for high-level planning estimates and value for money assessment guidelines.
The Industry Guide 2009/10 aims to provide a high-level first-order infrastructure planning cost estimate. The Industry Guide can be used in conjunction with tools such
as the Municipal Services Financial Model or the Municipal Infrastructure Investment Model to corroborate planning cost estimates.
The next review of the Industry Guide will deal with the capital costing for rehabilitation/maintenance of infrastructure, which is becoming a major concern within municipalities.
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Local Economic Development (LED)
LED encourages local people to work together to achieve sustainable economic growth and development, thereby bringing economic benefits and improved quality of life for all residents in a local municipal area.
As a programme, LED is intended to maximise the economic potential of all municipal localities throughout the country and to enhance the resilience of macro-economic growth through increased local economic growth, employment creation and development initiatives within the context of sustainable development.
The Department of Cooperative Governance's LED programmes provide support in:
- developing and reviewing national policy, strategy and guidelines on LED
- providing direct and hands-on support to provincial and local government
- managing the LED Fund
- managing and providing technical support to Nodal Economic Development Planning
- facilitating, coordinating and monitoring donor programmes
- assisting LED capacity-building processes.
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Capacity-building
Government aims to revive and strengthen the Local Government Training Academy (Logola) so that new councillors, who come in after the 2011 local government elections, are equipped to discharge their responsibilities effectively.
This will ensure that in every municipality, the six top positions are in place, namely: municipal manager, chief financial officer, town engineer, town planner, communication manager and human resources manager.
Overall, the vision is to have an efficient, effective, accountable and responsive local government system in South Africa.
Government is implementing flagship campaigns, namely the Clean Cities and Towns Campaign and the Operation Clean Audit 2014. Its strategic objectives are to ensure a campaign on good citizenship where rights go hand-in-hand with responsibilities.
People must live in a clean and safe environment where streets, neighbourhoods, townships, villages, rivers and air contribute to improving the quality of life. The private sector's involvement comes through the Adopt a Municipality Campaign.
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Disaster management
The Disaster Management Act, 2002 (Act 57 of 2002) [PDF] was promulgated in 2003. The National Disaster-Management Centre with functional disaster-management centres and advisory forums were established in eight provinces. The National Disaster-Management Advisory Forum has been recognised by the United Nations (UN) as the national platform for disaster-risk reduction.
South Africa has also made significant progress in respect of the implementation of the Hyogo Framework for Action – a global blueprint for disaster risk-reduction whose goal it is to substantially reduce disaster losses by 2015.
Through the National Disaster-Management Centre, the Department of Cooperative Governance has registered unit standards for levels three to seven with the South African Qualifications Authority for a national certificate in disaster-risk management. The department has also developed regulations for recruiting and using disaster-management volunteers every year.
Source: South Africa Yearbook 2010/11
Editor: D Burger. Government Communication and Information System
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Last modified: 13 June 2011 11:47:48. |
