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Chairperson
Honourable Ministers
Honourable Members

When our former President, Tat' uNelson Mandela, made his 'maiden speech' in this House in 1997, he reminded members that the "National Council of Provinces was set up as one of the core institutions of co-operative governance". Indeed, we have witnessed and experienced this over the past few years and commend the Council for the excellent work it has been doing to ensure that there is greater co-operation between national, provincial and local governments.

Our Ministry and department, as members may be aware, is mandated to promote an effective, efficient and integrated system of intergovernmental relations between the three spheres of government and the role that the Council has played thus far has made our responsibility so much easier.

We wish to thank the National Council of Provinces for its leadership and support.

As we moved into the consolidation phase of transformation (2002 - 2005), during which period the systems and practices of developmental local government will be consolidated in municipalities, we also have to ensure stability, certainty and predictability in the system of intergovernmental relations.

One of our department's priorities this year is to finalise the process of drafting the national framework legislation for intergovernmental relations in terms of the provisions of Section 41 of our Constitution and we hope that the draft Bill will be submitted to Cabinet within the next two weeks.

This legislation should also provide for appropriate mechanisms and procedures to facilitate the settlement of intergovernmental disputes.

Coherent government working collectively towards national objectives can only be achieved through the co-operation of all three spheres of government.

For policies addressing development, poverty alleviation and service delivery priorities to be implemented effectively, we would need an approach which involves all three spheres of government.

Effective implementation is predicated on effectively co-ordinated strategic plans. Implementing common or joint development programmes on the local level is not possible if the strategic plans of the participating spheres do not speak to one another. It is also creates difficulties when, for example, local development initiatives as contained in municipal IDPs are not matched with the resource allocations of national or provincial government because there is no alignment of the strategic plans.

Our department has experienced this difficulty in some of the development nodes we have been visiting. In the Western Cape, for example, we are in the process of looking at the alignment of the local IDP priorities and the provincial growth and development plan in both the Central Karoo rural development node and the Khayelitsha and Mitchell's Plain urban development nodes.

The department has recently made an assessment of the IDPs and interactions with provinces in this process clearly indicated that an intergovernmental planning policy may be necessary to outline the most suitable system and mechanism through which alignment and co-ordination can be achieved with as little resources and as little time as possible.

It is heartening to note that most provinces are making an effort to support municipalities in setting up systems for service delivery and building capacity at local level.

The Department has been given a role to co-ordinate and oversee the implementation of both the Integrated Sustainable Rural Development Programme (ISRDP) and the Urban Renewal Programme (URP). We have made significant progress in getting increased involvement and commitment from all three spheres of government as well as sector departments in the various nodes.

Over the past year and a half, with the support of the national, provincial and local champions, we have seen the URP and ISRDP making a difference in the lives of the communities.

We have embarked on a programme of visiting these nodes in order to assess on a regular basis the progress being made and interacting with the people on the ground through the medium of imbizo.

In Motherwell (Eastern Cape - URP) there are plans for an integrated transport project that will not only create 277 new jobs but will restructure the transport system serving Motherwell in a manner that can be expanded in the future. In the same node, they are progressing well with an urban agriculture project that has the community involved in developing a ploughing field.

On a recent visit to the Central Karoo rural node, it was inspiring to see how well government's vision of tackling poverty is understood by technical experts from various government departments such as Social Development, Transport, Environmental Affairs and Tourism who are working together to promote development in the region.

We are planning to visit KwaZulu-Natal soon. We have also been invited to visit the OR Tambo rural node.

The IDT has played a tremendous role in the rural nodes acting as a programme implementation agent. It is this type of partnership that characterises the work being done by the IDT in the development of the nodes and we must commend them on the work that they are doing.

Ward committees

We recently received a report from the Portfolio Committee on Provincial and Local Government that most of the municipalities they had visited had already established their ward committees. It is encouraging to learn that a diverse range of civil society organisations are actively involved in the ward committee structures, such as, churches, youth, women, business, taxi associations, community policing forums and school governing bodies.

Moretele Municipality in the North West Province is one example which has very vibrant ward committees.

We must also commend the North West Province for the initiative they are taking to support ward committees in the province. They have undertaken to assist wards by building small ward offices and providing them with basic infrastructure.

We missed the opportunity of experiencing first hand the NCOP initiative of 'taking parliament to the people' when members visited Taung and Mafeking in March this year. We wish to apologise for the inconvenience our unintentional unavailability may have caused. It was due to bad weather that the aircraft to Kimberley could not take off in time for us to be part of the proceedings. We thought we should just explain this.

The local government sphere is an important site for the transformation of the South African society and for the effective delivery of services to local communities.

We would like to thank the members of the Council and the Select Committee, in particular, for the tremendous work they have doing through their interventions in municipalities. We would also like to thank the DG, Ms Lindi Msengana-Ndlela, and her team for the sterling work they have done in turning around the Department to become a more dedicated, professional and goal-oriented. Thank you also to the Ministry staff who has supported the Minister and I. Also SALGA, the Premiers, MECs, Mayors, Councillors, inkosi and all our strategic partners who have supported us throughout this period. Most importantly, I would like to thank the Minister, Comrade Sydney Mufamadi, for his leadership, guidance and support.

I thank you!

Source: Department of Provincial and Local Government (http://www.dplg.gov.za)