Mpumalanga


Samwu takes on illegal promotions

Monday, July 25, 2011 No Comments by Zelda

The South African Municipal Workers Union (Samwu) is cracking the whip in Mpumalanga municipalities where municipal staff members were irregularly transferred to higher-paying positions.

Samwu provincial secretary Kgokedi Mphahlele said there was a trend in almost all Mpumalanga municipalities of officials being transferred to higher posts without them being advertised.

“We have managed to reverse [the appointment of] four municipal officials in the Steve Tshwete local municipality who were transferred to high and lucrative positions which were not advertised. The officials had also not applied for the posts,” said Mphahlele.

He said the four officials included two drivers, a personal assistant and a secretary.

Mphahlele said the four, who are Samwu members, agreed to go back to their former posts.

He said Samwu was now focusing on other municipalities, including Thembisile Hani in Kwaggafontein, Nkomazi in Malalane, Mbombela and Bushbuckridge, adding that the union had raised the matter with Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs MEC Madala Masuku and some ANC structures.

“We are awaiting their response,” said Mphahlele.

He warned that Samwu would insist on legal action being taken where necessary, as corruption had gotten to a point where whistleblowers were being threatened.

“We have also learnt that municipal managers are afraid to report these illegal acts because they believe they might lose their jobs as the people behind this claim to be politically connected in the province,” said Mphahlele.

ANC provincial spokesperson Paul Mbenyane was not aware of Samwu’s allegations and referred questions to Masuku’s office.

“An issue of this nature should be dealt with by the department, unless we are told to intervene,” said Mbenyane.

Masuku’s spokesperson, Simphiwe Kunene, could not be reached for comment.

Credit to: News 24

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Service delivery protests out of control

Tuesday, February 15, 2011 No Comments by Zelda

Service delivery protests in Wesselton, outside Ermelo, were entering a second day on Tuesday, Mpumalanga police said.

“The protest did not stop last night, it only subsided,” Captain Leonard Hlathi said.

He said protesters were still setting tyres alight in the township.

Thirty-three people would appear in the Ermelo Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday after they were arrested on Monday and for public violence.

Hlathi said protesters barricaded roads by using burning tyres and stones on Monday.

“They broke down robots and some traffic signs.”

Police could not say how many people were participating in the protest because they were operating in different areas.

An eNews television crew covering service delivery protests in Ermelo has been attacked by a crowd of protesters.

According to the eNews channel, reporter Jody Jacobs and a cameraman were hit by rocks, and their vehicles were damaged.

This included their cameras and computer equipment.

Dramatic footage of the incident was shown live on the news channel, including of the bleeding cameraman.

Jacobs told the anchor in the studio that the police were outnumbered by protesters and they had to run and find cover in their satellite van.

Petrol bombs were reportedly thrown at the police.

Credit to: News 24 and Sapa

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More wet weather next week

Friday, January 21, 2011 No Comments by Zelda

As municipalities and disaster management services around the country struggled this week to assess the damage caused by floods that claimed 41 lives, the SA Weather Services says there will be little respite from the deluge.

Forecaster Mark Todd yesterday said a severe weather alert for heavy rainfall and thunderstorms will be effective in the Eastern Cape from today.

“On Sunday, the wet weather will shift to Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal ,” said Todd.

Heavy rainfall is only expected in Gauteng again from Sunday.

The Eastern Cape and Kwazulu-Natal provinces were some of the worst affected by Monday’s flooding, with an initial estimate of R300-million damage to infrastructure, homes and farmland in KwaZulu-Natal, and R150-million in the Eastern Cape.

In North West, the damage has been estimated at around R80-million, and R50-million in the Northern Cape.

On Monday, 33 municipalities in eight provinces were declared disaster areas, including Gauteng’s three metros, Johannesburg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni.

Tshwane officials yesterday visited all low-lying bridges in the Centurion area, where emergency services remain on high alert.

City spokesman Console Tleane said that even though “the rivers remain full, no floods have occurred since Monday”.

Meanwhile, insurance company Santam says damage to “homes, property, vehicles and the loss of revenue from damaged agricultural crops caused by recent floods is expected to run well into the multi-million rand mark”.

Credit to: News 24

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Plan to help municipalities with unspent grants

Wednesday, November 17, 2010 No Comments by Zelda

The department of co-operative governance and traditional affairs has formulated a strategy to help municipalities battling to spend nearly R1bn in municipal infrastructure grants, department director-general Elroy Africa said yesterday.

The under expenditure of these funds — set aside to build bulk infrastructure at local government level — is concentrated in the country’s poorest regions, the ones in dire need of infrastructure and services including water, sanitation, roads, streetlights, parks and other basic services.

Since the 2004-05 fiscal year, national government has allocated R41bn to municipalities through the municipal infrastructure grant programme.

“By the end of the 2009-10 fiscal year, municipalities had reported expenditure of more than R40bn,” said Africa yesterday.

Afrika said that, by the end of June this year, more than R920m was still unspent by municipalities, with 24 municipalities constituting the bulk of this under expenditure.

The municipalities of Mbombela in Mpumalanga and OR Tambo in the Eastern Cape reported the highest under expenditure, at R83m and R53m respectively.

In some municipalities, under expenditure has been attributed to a lack of skills and capacity.

Some municipalities that failed to provide services for residents had even “redirected MIG funds”, Africa said.

Others were just putting the money into the general municipal account and using it for day-to-day expenses.

Africa said other reasons for grant underspending include poor project planning and limited project and technical management expertise in smaller rural municipalities, while some municipalities redirect grants for unauthorised purposes.

Intervention measures include meeting with targeted municipalities and the deployment of technical skills through a partnership with the Development Bank of Southern Africa and the Ilima Trust.

“In addition, we are in the process of appointing an auditing firm to assist us in checking m municipal infrastructure grant projects and verifying the expenditure of municipal infrastructure grant funds across the country.

“This will complement the existing oversight and reporting mechanisms we have,” he said.

Municipal IQ MD Kevin Allan said it is outrageous that municipalities continue to plead poverty but shoot themselves in the foot by not spending the funds.

He said: “The shocking extent of this under expenditure is a grave concern to us. The department’s intervention is a stop-gap measure, when a lasting solution is required.“

Local government is hampered by a “desperate” skills-shortage situation, he said, which should be dealt with by creating a culture of professionalism, in which qualified officials are hired.

Credit to: Business Day and The Sowetan

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Task team probes acid mine water

Tuesday, November 2, 2010 No Comments by Zelda

The Department of Water Affairs will tell Cabinet in mid-December how it plans to resolve the acid mine drainage threat and how much this will cost, the deputy head of government communications said.

“There are certain commitments, timelines and deadlines that the department has committed to,” said Vusi Mona.

“I am aware that within six weeks they hope to come back to Cabinet and say ‘this is what has been found out’ and ‘these are the allocations of the budget, the financial implications of the investigation’ … they have committed to a period of six weeks.”

It was announced last week that an inter-ministerial committee on acid mine drainage has completed a report on the toxic swill in disused mines in Johannesburg and other northern parts of the country.

However, the departments of mineral resources and water said the document would not yet be made public.

Mona said Cabinet this week extended the mandate of the inter-ministerial committee to probe complaints from farmers and retailers that widespread water pollution problems were affecting food production.

“[Cabinet] considered this serious enough to say that the inter-ministerial committee … should actually extend its mandate and look into this issue as well.

“Cabinet does not make light of this issue because it does affect the health of South Africans, it does affect the economy of this country.”

Farmers recently warned that South Africa’s deteriorating water quality could put European export markets at risk, while retailers Spar and Pick n Pay expressed concern that food could be contaminated with waterborne pathogens seeping into irrigation supplies from sewage plants.

A 2009 Green Drop report found just more than half of South Africa’s 900 water treatment plants attained a score of less than 50%.

According to Stellenbosch University epidemiologist Dr Jo Barnes, 80% of existing sewage treatment works in South Africa were overloaded, and about 40% of those in towns were on the brink of collapse.

The quality of the country’s river water had fallen by 20% in the past five years, she said earlier this month.

Mona said the inter-ministerial task team did not yet have a deadline to deliver a report on the pollution problem.

It was appointed in early September to deal with acid mine drainage, which has been described as the single biggest threat to the environment in the country and affects Gauteng, Mpumalanga, North West and Free State.

It results from the oxidation of sulphide minerals which are exposed in a mine or are present in dust in underground shafts and tunnels. As a result of its acidity, the water dissolves rock material and may contain a range of toxic metals.

Concern has been expressed over the rising level of acid mine water under Johannesburg, with experts saying the swill could enter the last safety buffer, an area stretching 150m below surface, by early 2012.

Credit to: The Mail and Guardina and Sapa

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R10.5bn in grants goes missing

Wednesday, October 13, 2010 No Comments by Zelda

The SA Social Security Agency (Sassa), set up by the government to distribute billions of rands in social grants, has failed to explain how, and to whom, it paid R10.5-billion in grants in the past financial year.

Times Live reports that this was revealed yesterday to parliament’s portfolio committee on social development by the auditor-general.

During its inspection of the agency’s books, the auditor-general’s team found that it had failed to produce supporting documents for the payment of R10.5-billion in social grants.

Sassa was established to manage the distribution of grants after the exposure of extensive mismanagement and corruption in the provincial agencies previously responsible for handing out the money.

Abrie Adendorff, a senior manager in the office of the auditor-general, said that, of the 2160 grant beneficiaries selected for auditing, 70 could not be authenticated by documentation.

Applying this ratio to the entire list of grant recipients suggested that R4.9-billion was paid out without documentary authentication.

A further 191 files audited did not contain the information necessary to confirm that a recipient was entitled to receive a grant.

Adendorff told the portfolio committee: “Management attests that the documentation is with Sassa, however, it can neither be located nor retrieved due to their poor file management.”

The auditor-general revealed its frustration at the lack of co-operation of some provincial branches of the agency.

“Eastern Cape, Limpopo and Mpumalanga were the problem areas,” said Adendorff.

In September News24 reported that seven people appeared in the Calcutta District Court in Mpumalanga for social grant fraud.

Through illegal possession and trading of child birth charts the provinces’ SA Social Security Agency was defrauded. The two men and five women allegedly defrauded the Mpumalanga and Limpopo provincial governments by selling child birth charts for R120, “enabling access to social grants”.

According police ministry spokesperson Zweli Mnisi, one of the arrested men, who worked at Bushbuckridge Hospital’s pharmacy, said he bought the charts for R10 each, dated them with the Bushbuckridge hospital’s official stamp, and sold them for R120.

Minister of police, Nathi Mthethwa, said there were more than a thousand people who falsely benefited through this.

“Amongst them are doctors, nurses and Sassa officials who are working in cahoots with this syndicate.”

Police estimate that the scam, which had been operating since 2004, had cost the provincial departments at least R13m.

Credit to: TimesLive, Sapa and News24

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Municipalities failed to spend R2.2bn

Tuesday, October 5, 2010 1 Comment by Zelda

Cadre deployment is the reason municipalities across the country failed to spend infrastructure grants of almost R2,2bn in the 2009-’10 financial year.

This according to the Democratic Alliance’s spokesman on co-operative governance, James Lorimer.

The annual report of the Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs, released on Friday, showed that municipalities received a subsidy of R8.7bn from the Treasury for infrastructure developments. Some municipalities did not use a cent of the subsidy, with municipalities in rural areas being the main offenders

“Whenever there is service delivery protests the government line is that municipalities are under-resourced and services cannot be maintained and infrastructure upgraded because of this lack of cash. The annual report shows it is rather an inability to spend money on things that improve people’s lives that is responsible for the failure to deliver. This inability to spend can be blamed on weak municipal government. The reason for this weakness, in large measure, is cadre deployment. As long as people are appointed on the basis of political loyalty rather than ability, we will have weak municipal governments,” said Lorimer.

Mobilitate News reported about the Municipal Systems Amendment Bill yesterday. The bill seeks to depoliticise municipalities and ensure that provincial and local governments appoint skilled people. (see the full story here)

The subsidies in question are a main component of the government’s programme for sustainable service delivery at a local level but more than R2bn is lying in municipal bank accounts.

Many municipalities have been torn apart by service delivery protests that have seen significant damage to the infrastructure that was in existence.

Local government across the country has also been plagued by poor infrastructure maintenance and a lack of capital spending on waste water treatment plants, resulting in a slew of reports about raw sewage being discharged into rivers and streams.

Mpumalanga (38%), North West (39%) and Free State (34%) returned the most money. The Western Cape, KZN and Limpopo spent most of their allocated funds. Only the municipalities in the Western Cape managed to spend 100% of the infrastructure grant funds allocated to them.

The following table shows the municipalities who spent the least of their annual grant:

North West: R352 million (39%)

Mpumalanga: R354 million (38%)

Gauteng: R104 million (37%)

Free State: R267 million (34%)

Eastern Cape: R593 million (31%)

Northern Cape: R144 million (43%)

Also see what Yunus Carrim, Deputy Minister of Co-operative Governance, had to say about poor service delivery at a conference for municipal finance officers in Durban yesterday here.

Credit to: Business Day, News24 and Bloomberg

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Politicians in municipalities on their way out.

Monday, October 4, 2010 2 Comments by Zelda

It looks like the controversial Municipal Systems Amendment Bill will be in the law books before next year’s local elections. The bill seeks to depoliticise municipalities and ensure that provincial and local governments appoint skilled people.

The bill has been criticised because it will limit the constitutional rights of politicians. But Co-operative Governance Minister Sicelo Shiceka hailed the bill as progress towards achieving President Jacob Zuma’s promise to rid public service of “lazy and incompetent” employees.

It would prohibit the appointment of political office bearers to top municipal posts.

Shiceka vowed to give service delivery a boost after next year’s local government elections by ensuring that every municipality had a capable municipal manager, chief financial officer, town engineer, town planner, communications manager and human resources manager.

The Democratic Alliance (DA) said the African National Congress (ANC) has come to its senses by drafting a bill which would stop cadres from holding senior municipal jobs. “”After some 13 years of systematically and deliberately trying to bring every public entity under its direct control and attempting to create a parallel authority to the Constitution, it appears the ANC is finally starting to come to its senses,” DA shadow minister of co-operative governance and traditional affairs, Willem Doman said.

The DA said the bill was a clear indication and admission that cadre deployment was damaging state institutions in the pursuit of power and patronage.

A report issued by the co-operative governance department at the beginning of the year found positions in local government were being used to dispense patronage, the result of which was widespread corruption and maladministration.

The amendments defined – “chairpersons, deputy chairpersons, secretaries, deputy secretaries or treasurers of the party nationally, or any province, region or other area in which the party operates” – as those who would be excluded from senior management positions.

“At national and provincial level there is no head of department who is an office bearer of a political party…if you want to become a politician, do that,” said Shiceka.

It also banned the employment of top municipal managers who did not have basic skills and forced municipalities to report to Shiceka and the relevant provincial MEC, when city managers were appointed.

Credit to: News24, SAPA

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