[ Home ] [ Speeches & statements ]

5 October 2007

Durban: President Thabo Mbeki will this week lead a top-level government team to KwaZulu-Natal as part of the Presidential Imbizo which will be held in the Uthukela District Municipality. The two-day event starts on Saturday and ends on Sunday. The Uthukela District Municipality which includes towns such as Ladysmith, Bergville and Colenso, remains one of the poorer areas in KwaZulu-Natal. It is hoped, however, that the President's visit will unlock some of the bottlenecks standing in the way of development and also kick-start new projects in the area.

Announcing the event today Friday, 5 October in Durban, Director-General (DG) of the KwaZulu-Natal Dr Kwazi Mbanjwa said Izimbizo were part of government's programme geared at speeding up the pace of delivery. "One of the features of the Izimbizo is the submission of various reports to the President for his consideration. The other feature is getting people to voice their needs and expectations during an open session. A new addition in KwaZulu-Natal is the introduction of instant services to the citizens at the Imbizo. This is truly taking democracy and service delivery to the people," said Mbanjwa.

Dr Mbanjwa said government was meaningless unless it impacted positively on the lives of the people of all races, gender and creed. The DG told journalists that KwaZulu-Natal remained a largely rural province facing poverty and unemployment of the majority. Out of the 2 272 000 households in KwaZulu-Natal, approximately 679 836 or 29% are without access to basic water services. Approximately R4 008 billion is required to address the water backlog. This excludes funding required for bulk supplies," said Dr Mbanjwa.

With respect to sanitation, Dr Mbanjwa said 992 600 or 43,7% of households did not yet enjoy basic sanitation service. This would however be eliminated soon. "Eradication costs are approximately R3 305 billion. KwaZulu-Natal is fortunate in that very few bucket sanitation systems were in operation during apartheid. As a result only 292 bucket latrines needed to be eliminated. We must say we are therefore pleased that KwaZulu-Natal will be the first province to eliminate the bucket sanitation system by 2008, at a total cost of R4,2 million," he said.

Unlike sanitation, electricity remained a bigger challenge.

"Some 773 644 or 34,1% of households in KwaZulu-Natal still do not have electricity connection. Electrification costs to address this backlog amount to approximately R8,001 billion. We are pleased that at least 36 769 households were electrified in 2006/07," said Dr Mbanjwa. One other challenge was that the backlog was often bigger than the allocated funds: "Grant funding over the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) 2007/08 through 2009/10, as published in the Division of Revenue Act, 2007, for Municipal Infrastructure Grant (MIG) (water component) is R2 925 949 759. This again means there is a huge shortfall," said Dr Mbanjwa.

He said progress had been made in the provision of water. An estimated 175 961 households had already been provided with water through the MIG programme last year. A programme for the installation of 20 water purification plants to provide short-term assistance in meeting the water supply national target of 2008 had also been launched. In spite of the shortfall in funding, so far 25 442 households were provided with sanitation services last year. The Indaka Municipality in the Uthukela District Municipality would have 99% of its buckets eradicated this year:

"The current completion status is 99%. Another example is the Umzimkhulu Cross Boundary Municipality which has 100 buckets to be eradicated. The current completion status is 40%," the Director-General said. Dr Mbanjwa also outlined some of the constraints standing in the way of delivery by municipalities in KwaZulu-Natal. The Director-General said it was worrying that some of the municipalities which had no revenue base of their own relied entirely on grants.

"Current MIG and INEP funding levels as published for the MTEF 2007/08 through 2009/10 are approximately 10% of what is required to address the backlogs in water, sanitation and electricity, within the national sector timeframes," said Dr Mbanjwa.

Dr Mbanjwa noted that at current funding levels, the eradication of backlogs will take three and seven years. That of electricity will take longer. He suggested that other sources of funding (private sector, donor, et cetera) be found to reduce the dependency on grants from the national fiscus. The capacity of local governments in respect of human resources and appropriate skills would need attention. Currently, technical capacity at municipal level is so limited that a substantial increase in funding as described above would be absorbed and utilised with difficulty.

Backlog eradication and MIG implementation is faced with the challenge of general lack of capacity at municipal and provincial level. This is the experience in a national context in as far as the whole country is concerned. Clearly, capacity within the provincial sphere, as the primary municipal support institution, will also need to be substantially enhanced and as a matter of extreme urgency. Dr Mbanjwa noted however that the economy of KwaZulu-Natal had grown to being the second biggest after Gauteng on the back of growth in the tourism sector manufacturing and the services sector.

Enquiries:
Mr Mandla Msomi
Tel: 033 341 3342
Cell: 0823173727

Issued by: Office of the Premier, KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Government
5 October 2007