Pretoria - The Minimum Competency Levels for municipal officials will be effective as of October 2015, said National Treasury and the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta).
In a statement on Wednesday, the two departments said that financial management reforms in municipalities were introduced in 2003 with the enactment of the Municipal Finance Management Act (MFMA). Government had committed to a phased implementation approach.
Municipalities spend just over R250 billion on an annual basis of this over R100 billion is provided by national government grants, conditional and unconditional for use on goods and services, infrastructure, administration and governance programmes all geared towards the delivery of services.
This resulted in a reform programme that gradually and incrementally introduced changes to the budgeting system, grant system and accounting and reporting system among others, while at the same time recognising the different types of municipalities and the different stages of development.
In 2007, the minimum competencies for officials responsible for financial and supply chain management were regulated. Minimum higher education qualifications; work related experience and core managerial and occupational competencies are among the aspects covered by the regulations.
The minimum competency levels also seek to professionalise the local government sector and to make it a career choice for talented officials and to some extent mitigate some of the root causes of poor financial management and service delivery.
According to the departments, municipal officials had eight years to attain the prescribed requirements.
In preparation for the implementation of the regulations, National Treasury and the provincial treasuries and other stakeholders across government undertook financial and capacity building to support municipalities to comply with the requirements.
In addition, a training programme was introduced in support of the minimum competency requirements for existing and new incumbents in the municipal sector while a graduate internship programme was also introduced.
“It is also important to note that additional financial resources were made available to municipalities in the form of the Financial Management Grant over the medium term amounting to just over R800 million,” said the departments.
Since the introduction of this reform, National Treasury has extended the deadline for full implementation twice, namely; from 1 July 2014 and 30 September 2015 to give officials and municipalities enough time to comply.
In the meantime, the database compiled by National Treasury on the levels of compliance indicates that over 9700 municipal officials have to date, embraced the regulations with varying levels of compliance under the financial management and Supply Chain Management competency levels.
“Minister of COGTA Pravin Gordhan and Minister of Finance Nhlanhla Nene have after consultation with the respective MECs and premiers agreed that no further extension will be granted,” they said on Tuesday. – SAnews.gov.za
