Former city manager of eThekwini Municipality Dr Mike Sutcliffe has, for the first time, provided an explanation on the implementation of Section 154 process in the municipality, telling ratepayers that the intervention will begin with a “diagnostics” process of challenges facing the City.
Sutcliffe was speaking at a public meeting in uMhlanga on Thursday, where he used the occasion to outline the blueprint for Section 154 intervention.
KwaZulu-Natal Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs MEC Reverend Thulasizwe Buthelezi placed the eThekwini Municipality under Section 154 in June, and announced that the process would be led by Sutcliffe and former director-general in the Presidency, Dr Cassius Lubisi.
Buthelezi said the aim of Section 154 was to restore eThekwini to its former glory as the jewel in the crown of KZN.
Section 154 of the Constitution allows for the provincial or national government to provide help to municipalities where there are concerns.
During his address to ratepayers, Sutcliffe said the provincial and national government must have the ability to monitor, support and where necessary intervene in the affairs of the municipality.
“Something that we have noted even in this process is that in the last 10 years a lot of municipalities are not spending their allocated budget. This is a challenge because funds that were given by the National Government for a specific area, for example disaster relief, should be used in its entirety for that purpose.”
Sutcliffe said the monitoring phase is doing well across the country.
“In South Africa, financial records are easily accessible for municipalities on the internet. You can see what a municipality’s budget is and what the area’s budget is being spent on. So we can monitor and compare municipality spending. I think at the monitoring level, we are doing quite well. eThekwini has been transparent, especially if you look at something like the beaches, testing of the beaches and the E coli level is always available for people to view.”
He said the second area of importance was support.
“The Constitution says in Section 154 that if a municipality has a set of challenges, the province has the statutory right to support the municipality and that’s what we have in eThekwini now. That’s what our role in the process is. If a municipality gets to a point where the situation is bad, where governance is completely failing, then only the province will appoint an administrator to effectively take over the administration of the municipality and this is what we call Section 139.”
Sutcliffe said Section 154 support entails different aspects. “The first thing that we need to do in this situation is to diagnose the problems. We know there are a whole set of issues in basic service delivery, finance, governance and economic development.
“So we need to make a good diagnosis and understand the source of the problem. We are looking at a whole range of areas, such as water, sanitation, service delivery, economic development and tourism.
“We will also look at the structure of the City, those employed in their positions, we will look if vacancies are being filled and the financial records and funds being spent. We also need to look at investment in the City and how well it is doing in securing local investment.”
Sutcliffe added that it was crucial for them to understand the nature of the challenges facing the City.
“We have to understand if it is a management problem, finance problem or competency problem. The high level diagnostics will be completed through information that we will be requesting and we don’t see a problem as we know the City is transparent.
“Once we have done that we will engage with all spheres of government, private sector and communities and we will say this is what we need to do to turn things around. Other spheres will also have their say on what they feel needs to be done to turn the City around and from there we will have recommendations for a turnaround strategy.”
He said he was pleased with the appointment of Cyril Xaba as eThekwini mayor.
“I have known him for years and know that he will be able to do a good job in addressing challenges faced in the City. We also want members of the public to contact us for strategic suggestions for the section 154 process.”
University of KwaZulu-Natal academic and political analyst Siyabonga Ntombela, said that Sutcliffe and Lubisi have the experience to manage the process.
“They have a wealth of experience in national and local government. It is paramount for recommendations to be implemented and to assure people that something is happening in the City.”
The Mercury