PRESIDENT RAMAPHOSA FOCUSES THE PRESIDENTIAL COORDINATING COUNCIL ON ACCELERATED SERVICE DELIVERY IN RESPONSE TO THE NEEDS OF COMMUNITIES

The PCC is the President’s platform for consultation and crucial engagement with provinces and organised local government in order to raise matters of national interest, coordinate alignment of priorities, strengthen strategic priorities, and discuss performance. The PCC transcends local boundaries and coordinates responses in a transversal and holistic manner.

President Cyril Ramaphosa convened the Presidential Coordinating Council (PCC) on Friday, 02 June 2023 centred on the theme of accelerating service delivery and addressing challenges in relation to legislation, governance and capacity constraints, including the strengthening of intergovernmental coordination within the existing legislative and governance framework.

Strengthening local government performance

President Ramaphosa said government needs to urgently address service delivery issues at local government level that can mostly be ascribed to a lack of requisite skills and competencies, governance failures and lack of accountability and inadequate consequence management.

“It is vital that we enhance the mobilisation of resources to be provided by national and provincial Government to support and strengthen the capacity of municipalities in the exercise of their powers and performance of their functions in accordance with section 154 of the Constitution. Our constitution acknowledges that local government is everybody’s business,” said President Ramaphosa.

The President acknowledged that despite the support that COGTA provides through the Municipal Infrastructure Support Agent (MISA) that deploys built environment professionals to provide technical support to municipalities on infrastructure development, infrastructure asset management as well as building a skills pipeline for local government, significant challenges continue to afflict local government.

MISA further supports municipalities to implement all other sector departments’ infrastructure projects in accordance with the District Development Model (DDM) that aims to break silo boundaries and ensure alignment across government departments and between the different spheres of government. However, service delivery blockages continue despite these existing mechanisms, legislation and cooperation agreements.

The PCC deliberated on the urgent task to review the funding model for municipalities and to re-evaluate the skills acquisition processes in order to enhance the capacitation of local government.

The meeting considered further validation and enhancement of the DDM as a mechanism for improved intergovernmental coordination and service delivery.

Electricity services

On the urgent task and ongoing efforts aimed at reducing load shedding, through inter-governmental collaboration, the meeting noted the process that is currently underway, coordinated by the Minister of Electricity, Dr Kgosientsho Ramakgopa, to introduce the net-billing framework currently being considered by NERSA, development of a wheeling framework and a feed-in tariff regime for municipalities which will enable households and business to add additional megawatts to the grid.

Water resources and services

On the delivery of water resources and water services, the meeting noted the critical task of improving the management of waste water and the restoring of high levels of water quality and reliability of supply.

Improving the water provision services requires increasing investments, ensuring revenue sufficiency and the appointment of professional and capable technical and managerial skills.

The meeting further considered proposed reforms to the Water Act and Water Services Act which will provide for better service delivery of water and enhanced regulation of the water sector. The Department of Water and Sanitation will provide further details on the Water Act amendment process including stakeholder consultations. >

State of roads

The PCC affirmed several interventions required for the upgrading and maintenance of the country’s road network. These include direct budget interventions by the National Department of Transport, funding for emergency works and routine maintenance over the next six months, further funding over the MTEF for medium term maintenance over the 12-month period, and primary road transfers from provincial authorities to the national road network for better management of provincial roads by SANRAL. The PCC welcomed the adoption of new technologies for usage in the resurfacing of gravel roads as a necessary innovative and cost reduction measure. This includes the deployment of Nano technology, which will reduce surfacing cost by 50%.

Waste management and greening

As part of the National Waste Management Strategy of 2020, the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment will focus on immediate interventions aimed at mass employment, cleaning and greening over the next 12 months and beyond.

The accelerated greening plan will be implemented in partnership with other role players. The greening plan targets 13 municipalities which are mostly capital cities of the nine provinces in the country and is scheduled to commence in June 2023 and aims to plant 72 500 trees by the end of March 2024. 40 000 trees will be planted by end of September 2023 (Arbor Month Campaign).

The mass employment element will cumulatively target 13 municipalities with 18 000 participants of about 2000 per province. The recruitment process will be conducted in line with EPWP published guidelines by DPWI (60% women, 55% youth and 2% PWDs). Currently, the program has 682 participants that have already been on-boarded and are present on the ground.

To address the challenge of illegal dumping, the DFFE will finalise a proposal to assist 13 municipalities with the purchase of fleet for improved waste collection, clearing of illegal dumps and proper landfill management.

Human Settlements

The PCC supported the interventions for accelerating service delivery in human settlements with a particular focus on the vulnerable and special groups, and providing speedy responses to housing emergencies and upgrading informal settlements. The meeting noted the importance of public-private partnerships in the implementation of bulk infrastructure in identified prioritised settlements in non-metros.

The department will also finalise the Housing in Human Settlements White Paper within 9 months. Furthermore, the Department committed to tighten recommendations regarding regulatory reforms and provide trends analysis in respect of funds transferred to all other organs of state, propose reforms in respect of payments milestones, unblocking blocked projects and title deeds management processes.

Conclusion:

The meeting was the first regular President’s Coordinating Council (PCC) meeting in more than three years. The last regular meeting was held on 28 February 2020, during this period 31 special PCC meetings focussing on the response to COVID-19 as well as the national states of disaster were held. The PCC held 10 special meetings in 2020, and 15 special meetings in 2021. In 2022, there were 4 meetings convened. Earlier this year, 2 meetings were held.

These meetings are indicative of the extraordinary times the country has lived through, as it came to grips with the seemingly insurmountable challenges posed by the pandemic, the floods in parts of KZN, the Eastern Cape and the North West and more recently, the electricity challenges. They are also indicative of what can be achieved when all spheres of government work together as one government, serving the people. 