Johannesburg - Public Protector Advocate Busisiwe Mkhwebane on Wednesday met with traditional leaders in KwaZulu-Natal in a bid to find solutions to the tensions between traditional leadership and municipalities in the province, which have an adverse effect on service delivery.
Mkhwebane’s roadshow, which began in the Free State and Northern Cape last week, saw her come to KZN this week following her 2021 investigation which found that the provincial departments of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs had failed to promote partnerships between district municipalities and Kingship or Queenship Councils in contravention of the Traditional Leaders Governance Framework Act (TLGFA).
Mkhwebane’s report also found that the departments had failed to provide information to traditional leaders and councils on their assigned roles and functions and on the Provincial Gazette, which regulates their participation in the proceedings of a municipal council and prescribes their role in the affairs of a municipality.
It further found departments to have failed in providing traditional leaders and councils with information on their funding, resourcing and remuneration.
Office of the Public Protector spokesperson Oupa Segalwe said that the findings followed an own-initiative systemic investigation on alleged strained relations between some traditional authorities and the local sphere of government, with a specific focus on the impact of such relations on the quality of public service delivery to local communities.
“In the light of the findings, Advocate Mkhwebane directed MECs of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs across the country, with the exception of Gauteng and the Western Cape, to put measures in place to support and strengthen traditional councils to fulfil their functions.
“These included helping traditional authorities to enter into service delivery agreements with municipalities in accordance with the TLGFA. The MECs were further urged to put in place measures to promote partnerships between municipalities and traditional councils in line with the TLGFA and the Intergovernmental Relations Framework Act,” Segalwe said.
Mkhwebane said that they had wanted to have the roadshow with the Speaker of the provincial legislature, Nontembeko Boyce, Premier Sihle Zikalala and the Executive Council alongside the traditional leaders, but this could not take place due to the State of the Province Address taking place on Thursday. However she added that a meeting would be scheduled for a later date with the government leaders.
Among the issues of concern raised by traditional leaders was their protection in the face of increasing violence against them, which has seen several of them murdered.
In the engagement, KwaZulu-Natal Provincial House of Traditional Leaders Chairperson Inkosi Phathisizwe Chiliza called for traditional leadership to be rightfully respected by government departments and to be recognised as an important partner in governance issues and service delivery to communities.
“We thank the Office of the Public Protector for today’s engagement, it’s very important to us as traditional leadership because most of the time you find these protests and you find that there is misunderstanding between traditional leadership and municipalities, only to find that those are minor things,” Chiliza said.
He said that they fully supported the report and that they would wait for Premier Sihle Zikalala and Cogta MEC Sipho Hlomuka to ensure that what was in the report was implemented, because in some areas in KZN there were poor relations between traditional leadership and municipalities due to councils undermining the traditional leadership.
“We work with the Office of the Public Protector because we believe that this is the relevant office to make sure that those departments are doing what they are supposed to do,” Chiliza said.
Political Bureau