Poverty in Western Cape growing

Cape Town - Local government MEC Anton Bredell has stressed that the biggest challenge facing municipalities in the province was the fact that “poverty is catching up” with them.

Tabling his department’s annual report before the provincial government’s standing committee for local government on Wednesday, Bredell said his department has received a clean audit opinion from the auditor-general.

“Our financial management is under control,” Bredell said.

Over the past year, the department has provided support and capacity building programmes to all 30 municipalities in the province, with the aim of delivering the best necessary services to communities.

Bredell said this year the department had exceeded almost all of its performance targets.

Responding to questions from ANC MPL Richard Dyantyi, about the impact of service delivery protests on the department and its oversight role in the province’s municipalities, Bredell highlighted the fact that the province had had a 37 percent population growth over the last 14 years.

Dyantyi said for the year 2013/2014 there were 644 protests in the province, and he wanted Bredell’s take on the issue.

Bredell pointed out that there were different reasons for the protest action, saying that not all were service related.

The EFF’s Nazier Paulsen wanted to know what the department was doing to resolve the problem in municipalities like Oudtshoorn where politicians and not officials were causing problems.

Bredell said that in Oudtshoorn it was not just the politicians but also the officials who were causing problems.

“Sometimes unfortunately you will need to follow the legal route,” Bredell said.

A stable political environment and a good administration were needed to get a town’s council in a proper running state.

“I am not the boss of politicians, we work with councils. I am the MEC for local government in the province, I’m not the MEC for the DA members in a council,” he said.

Using stats from the municipal IQ survey, Bredell said seven of the top 10 best performing municipalities in the country were in the Western Cape.

“Twenty-nine out of the 30 municipalities in the province also managed to attain unqualified audits in their latest financial year, with 11 of the 29 getting a further accolade, that of getting clean audits in the year under review,” he added.

Another highlight was that the province spent more than 98 percent of its Municipal Infrastructure Grant (MIG) expenditure. But Bredell stressed that despite the progress, much still needed to be done to improve the living conditions of many communities.

warda.meyer@inl.co.za

- Cape Argus