Cape Town – Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba says there was a high rate of compliance in the appointment of senior managers at municipalities.
The Minister said this when he chaired a media briefing of the Governance Cluster in Pretoria on Sunday.
The Minister said out of 198 senior managers that were appointed over the past year, 176 were compliant with the Municipal Systems Act, 2000 (Act 32 of 2000) and Regulations on Appointment and Conditions of Employment of Senior Managers.
He said the high levels of compliance should be lauded.
“However, 22 senior managers were in contravention of the prescripts.
“Members of the Executive Councils in the affected provinces have taken corrective measures, for example, in the Eastern Cape four appointments were found non-compliant and therefore the MEC directed that the affected municipalities to re-advertise,” he said.
In September last year, Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Pravin Gordhan announced the introduction of the “Back to Basics” Strategy to assist local government go back to getting the basics of service delivery right.
Earlier this year, the Minister reportedly said an audit had highlighted that a notable number of the country’s municipalities were dysfunctional and that they would receive some much needed support.
Minister Gigaba said on Sunday that a national audit outcomes improvement plan for all municipalities, including those that were categorised as “dysfunctional” in terms of the Back to Basics strategy, had been produced.
“CoGTA has developed 50 ward-level service improvement plans in Mbizana and Aganang local municipalities in the Eastern Cape and Limpopo, respectively.
“This brings the cumulative number to 98% ward-level service improvement plans developed against a total of 4 277 wards across all local and metropolitan municipalities in the country.
“The department will continue to support the outstanding municipalities to develop and implement ward-level service improvement plans by March 2016,” he said.
The Minister said, meanwhile, that the Department of Performance, Monitoring and Evaluation had completed 30 municipal scorecards, as well as conduct quality assurance on 30 municipal moderated scorecards from six participating provinces.
He said that this was done as part of the Local Government Management Improvement Model Moderation.
He said the department had commenced with the review of the model’s implementation guide and standards for the 2015/16 cycle.
Minister Gigaba also announced that Cogta’s Community Work Programme (CWP) has been implemented in 175 municipalities with a total number of 194 CWP sites by the end of June 2015.
“As at June 2015, the total CWP participation rate was 182 945.
“The initiative to establish partnerships with public, private sector and civil organisations has been achieved.
“Local Reference Committees have developed, analysed and approved 187 training plans for CWP municipalities.
“Two additional CWP sites have been established at Ekurhuleni Metro and Mookgophong Local Municipality respectively.” – SAnews.gov.za
