Service-delivery mess at crisis proportions, MPs warn

Opposition MPs urged the government to take firmer action on service-delivery problems, warning that the situation was spiralling out of control.

"Even the staunchest ANC loyalist cannot but admit that local government has sunk beyond crisis [levels]; it is becoming a fully fledged national disaster," COPE MP Juli Kilian said.

During a debate in the National Assembly on the Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Department's R54.7-billion budget, she said the situation was "frighteningly reminiscent of South Africa in the late 1980s".

Her remarks come against a backdrop of service-delivery protests in at least four places around the country yesterday.

DA MP John Steenhuisen told the house that "drastic steps" were needed to reform local government.

The country was facing service-delivery protests at a rate, on average, of two a week.

Steenhuisen said President Jacob Zuma's recent statement that "service protests are not a threat to the stability of the country" displayed a "remarkable political naivety".

- SAPA