Monthly Archives: December 2010


R30m still needed to fix Bruma

Wednesday, December 29, 2010 1 Comment by Zelda

The Johannesburg Metro Council needs R30m for work on a proposed R41,2m rehabilitation project at Bruma Lake that will convert it from a dam to a banked river.

Once a prestigious area, in recent years the build-up of unpleasant- smelling and dangerous toxic pollution in the lake has seen Bruma lose its popularity as a leisure and office park destination.

But this could change, with the city’s environment committee recently spending R11m on a clean- up project at Bruma.

Among the short-term measures in place are the installation of a grid under the Bruma bridge and the placing of litter baskets at various points.

To ensure the water that passes through Bruma Lake is kept clean, the council plans to treat water flowing into the lake in a precipitation plant and to install water aerators .

So far, R7m has been made available by the Expanded Public Works Programme for clearing litter from the lake and preparatory work on the project.

A further R4,2m is being provided for a precipitation plant, for reshaping the lake, and for removing sediment and converting the lake into a free-flowing channel.

“This project is urgently needed as e.coli levels in the lake are dangerously high,” said Jack Bloom, the Democratic Alliance’s health spokesman in Gauteng.

“This could lead to a health crisis throughout Gauteng as the water from Bruma — which is on the Jukskei River — flows into the Crocodile River and Hartbeespoort Dam, which irrigates an enormous food-producing area,” he said.

A spokesman for the City of Johannesburg, Nkosinathi Nkabinde, said property owners around the lake had showed support for the plan, provided their needs were taken into account.

“The proposed interventions are largely listed activities requiring authorisation in terms of the National Environmental Management Act, the National Environmental Management Waste Act and the Water Act,” Nkabinde said.

Credit to: Business Day

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SA agri at risk of losing export status

Tuesday, December 21, 2010 No Comments by Zelda

Exporters of fruit and vegetables are in danger of having their products banned by the European Union because they have been contaminated by polluted irrigation water.

These are the preliminary conclusions of a probe into the link between the irrigation water quality and food safety commissioned by the Water Research Commission (WRC) and conducted by the departments of food science at the universities of Stellenbosch, Pretoria and Venda.

The study was carried out because of concerns that SA’s agricultural produce is at risk of losing its export status because of water pollution.

Chris van Zyl, general manager of the Transvaal Agricultural Union (TAU), said fruit-exporting farmers were particularly at risk because they had to meet strict European Union rules.

“If it comes to light that we have this kind of problem, they (the farmers) face a serious problem,” he said.

In May, the TAU and the National Water Forum (NWF) laid criminal charges against the ministers of water affairs, agriculture, fisheries, and forestry and environment for their failure to clamp down on big industries polluting SA’s water resources.

Gerhard Backeberg, the director of water utilisation in agriculture at the WRC, said there was an urgent need for research into the microbiological water quality used for irrigation in food production and the risks posed by such water.

Gareth Lloyd-Jones, MD of Ecowise, said the deteriorating quality of SA’s raw water supplies could have a devastating effect on food safety if local producers and retailers did not introduce measures to safeguard the quality of their water.

“Producers may need to invest in purification measures and processes in order to minimise the risks to food safety caused by waterborne diseases,” he said.

Backeberg said the solution was to treat water pollution at the source.

“Many of our rivers are heavily contaminated and must be seen as the direct source of contaminated irrigation water. It is no longer acceptable or even ethical for the various stakeholders to maintain that they are unaware of the extent and seriousness of the problem of contaminated surface waters.”

Credit to: Times Live

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Sekhukhune manager re-suspended

Tuesday, December 21, 2010 No Comments by Zelda

The protracted stand-off between the greater Sekhukhune district municipality in Limpopo and its municipal manager, Samson Makunyane, is far from over.

Makunyane was last week suspended for the second time in two weeks by a special council sitting. He was initially suspended on December 2 along with the council’s chief finance officer, Thandiwe Lengwati.

In a surprise move the two were re-appointed on December 9, hardly five days after their initial suspension.

But another five days after the re-appointment, the council decided otherwise and re-suspended them on December 15.

The suspension takes to 10 the total number of municipalities that are currently without permanent managers in Limpopo.

A municipal source, who was part of the special council sitting, said the second suspension “comes days after lawyers representing the two feuding groups met behind closed doors in Groblersdal on Monday to discuss Makunyane and Lengwati’s future.

“During the meeting, the lawyers indicated in writing that their clients did not object to the suspension and gave the go-ahead for investigations and subsequent hearing.”

Municipal spokesperson Tswako Willy Mosoma confirmed on Sunday that the two were re-suspended. He said the council decided on suspending them so that it could investigate why municipal finances were in a mess.

Sekhukhune district was declared one of the poorest in the country by former President Thabo Mbeki in 2002. The district covers five other local municipalities which are also among the poorest in the country.

Makunyane and Lengwati’s suspension comes a few days after MEC for local government and housing Soviet Lekganyane reprimanded municipalities for poor performance.

Lekganyane told MECs, mayors and heads of departments during an intergovernmental forum at Bolivia Lodge that a shortage of skills among council managers was hampering service delivery.

His words were echoed by acting premier and MEC for education Dickson Masemola who ordered all municipalities to work hard in the next financial year and rise to the national call to produce clean audit reports by 2014 and beyond.

Credit to: The Sowetan

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Ratepayers withhold R10m

Tuesday, December 21, 2010 No Comments by Zelda

Ratepayers’ associations in 35 towns across the country who were in dispute with their municipalities withheld R10m in rates.

This according to a study by the community law centre at the University of the Western Cape (UWC).

The study were monitored by the Local Government Research Centre.

About R3m of the total amount was being withheld in one municipality, Makhado (formerly Louis Trichardt) in Limpopo.

Associations under the National Taxpayers’ Union (NTU) umbrella body have declared disputes with their municipalities for what they say is a lack of service delivery. In some cases the associations are providing the services to the rates withholders themselves.

The research focused on five municipalities: Moqhaka (Kroonstad) and Ngwathe (Heilbron and Parys) in the Free State, Tswaing (Sannieshof) and Madibeng (Brits) in North West and Nokeng Tsa Taemane (Cullinan) in Gauteng.

Research Centre director Clive Keegan reported that the main service delivery problems raised by ratepayers were that raw sewage flowed into rivers and dams owing to inadequate maintenance of filtration plants; poorly maintained pumps and pipelines caused a shortage of potable water; poor road maintenance resulted in potholes to the point where roads became gravel; and towns faced electricity disconnection as a result of a municipality’s non-payment of its Eskom bills.

The UWC report noted that there was no evidence that the boycotts were carried out by businesses but there were significant political consequences as a result of residents withholding fees.

It noted that political parties, including those sympathetic to the complaint about lack of service delivery, did not support the withholding of funds.

The National Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs has held meetings with the NTU in an effort to resolve the problems.

The researchers, meanwhile, proposed that the centralised system of mayoral committees should be reviewed.

“One of our main conclusions was that the executive mayoral committee system is neither suited to conditions in our country nor an effective instrument for local nation building. It leads to executive-centeredness and carries the risk of the party caucus replacing council.”

Jaap Kelder of the NTU said last week that the impasse between his organisation and the government remained. Although deputy minister Yunus Carrim had attempted to intervene in Sannieshof this week, the two sides still could not come to agreement.

Credit to: Business Report

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Municipalities owed R62.3bn

Tuesday, December 21, 2010 No Comments by Zelda

The Treasury has reported that 276 municipalities across the country were owed R62.3bn at the end of September and the bulk of this amount – nearly R38bn – was made up of household rates and service charge debts.

The six metropolitan cities made up well over half of the amount owed at R35.4bn.

Money owed to the 276 municipalities that report to Treasury – of the 283 in total – grew by R2bn a month between June and September.

Local Government Research Centre director Clive Keegan said the ever increasing amounts owed to municipalities was testimony to the fact that the government had been “singularly unsuccessful” in breaking the back of what he called “the payment boycott mentality”.

“It is the hangover from the resistance period. It tells us there is no political will to implement effective revenue control measures and in most municipalities the billing systems are in complete disarray.”

Keegan said there needed to be “a profound up-scaling of municipal financial systems” and the political will to gather the monies owed.

The debt owed to the metros – including Cape Town, Ekurhuleni, Nelson Mandela Metropole, Johannesburg, Tshwane and eThekwini – grew by just short of R4bn in the 12 months to September.

Johannesburg had the biggest growth at 23.5 percent, or R2bn a year, while Cape Town’s debt grew 11.8 percent, or R558m. Johannesburg was owed R10.5bn in total while Cape Town was owed R4.7bn.

eThekwini’s debt level decreased slightly by 1.3 percent, or R70m, to R5.3bn while money owed to Tshwane dropped by R1.7m to R3.7bn. It is an indication that they both improved their debt collection procedures.

Secondary cities were owed just short of R13bn at the end of the first quarter, an increase of R2.3bn, or 18.3 percent.

Households once again made up the largest component at R7.7bn, or 67.3 percent of the total.

Government departments, including national and provincial, owed the least to the municipalities at 5.5 percent, or R3.4bn, while businesses owed just short of R14bn, or 22 percent. Those falling outside the categories of business, households and government owed R7.3bn in outstanding debt, just short of 12 percent of the total.

Water made up the bulk of the outstanding debt at 27 percent, or R17.5bn, of the total money owed while property rates were in second place at 25.6 percent, or R16.3bn.

Electricity was in third place at R10.6bn (16.6 percent) if one excludes the assorted “other debt” category at 17 percent, or R11bn.

The remaining debt was made up of sanitation and refuse removal.

Credit to: Business Report

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Officials and Sannieshof residents negotiate

Friday, December 17, 2010 No Comments by Zelda

Negotiations will continue with the Sannieshof Inwoners Belastingbetalers Unie (SIBU), a ratepayers association, to phase out its boycott of rates and service charges in the Tswaing Municipality in the North West, the department of co-operative governance said on Wednesday

Deputy Minister Yunus Carrim, North West premier Thando Modise and local government MEC Paul Sebego, addressed about 140 stakeholders representing 34 organisations in Tswaing to strengthen support for the municipality’s turnaround strategy, spokesperson Nkanyiso Ndadane said in a statement.

“Premier Modise said that while she recognised that some of the grievances of the SIBU were legitimate, their boycott action was illegal, and suggested that it could also be seen as a form of corruption.

“She urged members of the SIBU to work with their fellow residents and the municipality to improve service delivery and development in Tswaing,” he said.

The SIBU would serve on the Tswaing Municipal Turnaround Strategy (MTAS) Committee together with other civil society stakeholders, including representatives of business, labour, civic, traditional leader, women and youth organisations.

The committee would also include representatives of the national and provincial departments of co-operative governance.

Carrim was quoted saying: “While local government has a level of autonomy, national and provincial government cannot fold their arms and remain aloof when municipalities are in distress.

“Within the constraints of the Constitution, national and provincial government will now be far more pro-active in municipalities than they have been in the past.”

Credit to: News24 and Sapa

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KZN finances looking up

Friday, December 17, 2010 No Comments by Zelda

Financial management in KwaZulu-Natal’s municipalities is stabilising after more of them received unqualified audits last year, the provincial co-operative governance department said earlier in the week.

“We have improved the number of municipalities that received unqualified audits, growing from 44 (out of 61) in the financial year of 2008/9 to 55 in 2009/10,” said MEC Nomusa Dube.

The analysis was based on 56 municipalities that submitted their audit reports to the auditor general on time and in compliance with the law.

“The reports are still being audited, which we are confident may result in a much more improved outlook, given the co-operation we have engaged in the municipalities to make improvements.”

She was unhappy about the Umkhanyakude, Ilembe, Dannhauser, Nkandla and Nquthu municipalities submitting their reports after the August 31 deadline.

“We have reprimanded the mayors and ordered them to take disciplinary procedures against the accounting officers there.

“We have also instructed them not to pay any performance bonuses to senior managers.”

Dube said she was aware of problems facing municipalities, such as a shortage of chief financial officers and the difficulty of retaining them.

She said she was not happy with the developing trend of councillors being dismissed by political parties in an “overwhelming manner”.

“We are currently sitting with over 20 vacant councillor positions across the province following their sacking by political parties.”

She said service delivery has been compromised.

“The municipalities of uMkhanyakude, Mtubatuba, Danhauser, Indaka OKhahlamba, uMtshezi and eDumbe are the ones where high-level party engineered instability exists.”

Dube made an example of uKhahlambe in Bergville where the situation has reached a point where council meetings cannot take place due to a shortage of councillors following the dismissal of 13 out of 16 councillors on December 6.

Credit to: News24 and Sapa

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Prepaid meters on the cards for Joburg

Tuesday, December 14, 2010 3 Comments by Zelda

Johannesburg residents might soon be forced to install prepaid water and electricity meters in their houses.

This comes as the city’s billing system, named Project Phakama, which was supposed to sort out problems with residents’ municipal accounts, resulted in chaos.

In a reply to questions from DA councillor Marian Kemp, Joburg Water said it planned to roll out pre-paid water meters to every household across the city.

But details as to when, how and the costs involved were not available.

City Power has the same plans, saying it had already installed pre-paid electricity meters in about 16584 households in Roodepoort, Tshepisong and Matholeville.

The city’s revenue collection has in recent months come under severe pressure as a result of the city’s inability to properly bill its customers.

The implementation of the R580-million Project Phakama, an IT system aimed at creating a single-stop invoicing centre where accounts would be centralised into one billing database, is struggling to cope.

Council spokesman Nthatisi Modingoane said the prepaid meters were one of several options being considered to distribute electricity.

“The city will study the results of the pilot project before making a decision on the future roll-out of pre-paid meters and in which regions of Johannesburg it might be feasible”.

He said a pre-paid system would help customers manage their own usage, as well as help the city to increase revenue collection.

He said the final decision on whether the systems will be rolled out, and if so, when, would be influenced by council’s future budget priorities.

DA caucus in the Joburg council, councillor Vasco Da Gama, said: “We have no problem with pre-paid meters, but it must be negotiated with communities.”

Credit to: Times Live

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Plan to improve municipal infrastructure

Tuesday, December 14, 2010 No Comments by Zelda

The Department of Energy, assisted by the Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs, will drive the programme of rehabilitation of the electricity redistribution network in the 284 municipalities across the country.

This comes after a 13-year plan to establish semi-autonomous state-owned regional electricity distributors (REDs) collapsed last week.

A special purpose vehicle will be established by the Co-operative Governance Department to accelerate and improve the provision of municipal infrastructure, including electricity.

Local Government Research Centre director Clive Keegan said that the special purpose vehicle had not yet been defined, but it was likely that it would have to be spelt out in a draft bill. It could take the form of a company with public and private sector involvement.

Focusing on the need for a special purpose vehicle, the Minister of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Sicelo Shiceka, has already indicated that many municipalities have failed to deliver and manage infrastructure properly.

His department recently told MPs that in particular, there was inadequate integrated planning and monitoring, a lack of adequate capacity to plan and deliver infrastructure and inadequate funding to meet capital investment needs.

This included what EDI Holdings chief executive Phindile Nzimande noted was a R32 billion backlog in infrastructure investment for electricity distribution.

The spokesman for the Department of Energy, Bheki Khumalo, said the special purpose vehicle would target all infrastructure, “not only” electricity, and would be directed at failing municipalities.

The Energy Department, however, would be the principal department to police the maintenance and upgrade of the electricity infrastructure.

The decision by the cabinet last week to scrap the REDs followed a resolution at the ANC’s national general council in September. That resolution called for electricity distribution to remain in the hands of the municipalities.

There were originally plans to have six REDs but only one, RED1 in the Western Cape, was partially formed. Keegan said the establishment of RED1 had “put the cart before the horse” as the legislative basis for the system was never put in place.

The cabinet decided to withdraw the constitution 17th amendment bill, which was published in June. The bill sought to vest the government with new powers of intervention at local government level “when it is necessary to achieve regional efficiencies and economies of scale in respect of municipal functions”.

The cabinet first approved the EDI Holdings model in 1997 and by May 2001 it agreed to merge the municipal distribution entities with Eskom’s distribution business into six regional distributors.

The transitional state-owned EDI Holdings was to cross-subsidise from stronger to weaker REDs for five years.

EDI Holdings was incorporated in March 2003. By the end of October 2006 the cabinet approved the need for six “wall-to-wall” REDs and said a national electricity pricing system would be developed.

But Keegan said local government was reluctant to relinquish its rights to electricity distribution as many large municipalities derived significant revenue from the activity.

Buyelwa Sonjica, the then energy minister, said in March the EDI restructuring model was costing the country up to R8bn a year and the distribution maintenance and refurbishment backlog was about R27bn.

Nzimande said last month that EDI Holdings’ plan to wipe out the maintenance backlog had not been implemented because of a lack of funds.

She said a 10-year plan to improve municipal infrastructure was to have begun in 12 municipalities in May this year, but the necessary funding had not been provided.

The Co-operative Governance Department envisaged that the special purpose vehicle would help poor municipalities with infrastructure planning and mobilise private sector funding.

A bulk infrastructure fund would ring-fence dedicated funding to address bulk infrastructure backlogs.

Credit to: Business Report published on IOL

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Joburg billing crisis still not resolved

Tuesday, December 14, 2010 6 Comments by Zelda

South Africa’s richest city is struggling to deliver basic services as its chaotic billing system makes it impossible for it to collect millions in arrears payments.

Johannesburg’s much-vaunted year-old computerised billing system, Project Phakama (Upliftment), has turned out to be a nightmare for both the municipality and residents.

Its failure has rendered the city’s refuse, water and electricity utilities powerless to clean streets, and to repair street lights and water pipes.

The cash-strapped council has not been able to implement water and sanitation projects for informal settlements since June.

A quarterly infrastructure and services report has blamed the utilities’ poor financial performance, and the council’s inability to collect outstanding rates and services bills, on Project Phakama.

The system cost R580m and was intended to help the city to recoup some of the R8.4bn it is owed by residents and businesses.

City officials admit that they have failed to resolve the billing crisis since the system was implemented in November last year.

The report – an assessment of the performances of City Power, Joburg Water and Pikitup, between June and October – has also revealed that a sub-committee headed by mayor Amos Masondo has ordered municipal officials to resolve “performance issues” by Christmas.

Masondo’s office has also ordered that backlogs in the provision of services be cleared before next year’s local-government elections.

The City of Johannesburg has a budget of R28.3b – R5.3b more than Cape Town, the country’s next-wealthiest city.

The infrastructure and services report, which was presented to the mayoral committee last month, also revealed that:

• Joburg Water failed to complete water and sanitation projects in unnamed informal settlements because it failed to appoint a contractor on time. The report also revealed that Joburg Water’s liquidity ratio – value of assets divided by liabilities – has weakened to 1.1:1 – well below the 1.5:1 normal for municipalities;

• City Power had 25 serious power outages this year against a target of 24. It erected 1322 street lights to 12 areas in the quarter but poor maintenance of street lighting “nullified good work being done in this area”; and

• Cash-strapped Pikitup has reduced its cleaning work in 119 informal settlements, including those in Diepsloot, Alexandra, and at hostels in Soweto, from a daily service to three times a week.

Despite these and other backlogs, senior municipal executives have been getting huge salaries and extremely generous “performance bonuses”.

According to information supplied by the DA, former City Power head Silus Zimu, who earned R2.7m a year, was given a R335000 performance bonus at the end of the 2009-2010 financial year.

Pikitup boss Zami Nkosi received a R200000 bonus on top of his R1.7m salary.

Joburg Water confirmed that its managing director, Gerald Dumas, got a R139000 bonus in addition to his R1.9m annual salary.

Masondo is expected to announce performance bonuses for senior managers at next month’s council meeting.

City of Joburg spokesman Nthatisi Modingoane confirmed that the three utilities had been under strain during the past three years.

“During this period, municipal-owned entities had to adjust their budgets accordingly,” he said.

“As is the case with most public and private sector entities, the budgets allocated do not necessarily correspond with the budgets requested.”

The infrastructure and services report is expected to be tabled at a council meeting at the end of next month.

“It is increasingly critical for the sector to accelerate delivery considering the potential pressures presented by the nearing festive season and the upcoming local government elections,” the report states.

Johannesburg’s DA caucus leader, Vasco da Gama, said the city’s billing system was a mess and that the city had not sent bills to Soweto residents because not all of them had been recorded on the new system.

“The [council's] directors cannot justify receiving a bonus when they fail to compel the billing department, which is part of Project Phakama … to effectively and regularly collect service-delivery fees,” he said.

“Residents call us regularly to complain that they don’t receive bills or receive interim bills for grossly exaggerated amounts.

People query these bills and the process is extended unnecessarily. If Phakama were working properly, then residents would be contributing their fair share.”

It was revealed last week that the city plans to install pre-paid water and electricity meters in every home.

Credit to: Times Live

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