Q: More talk shops with no tangible results?
A: Not at all. You must understand it's different now because this has been provoked by the report of the auditor-general, who indicated there was no improvement in municipalities in terms of audit outcomes, and so we were challenged to say what we are going to do differently as parliament.
Q: That's precisely what I want to ask you.
A: On the basis of her report, we changed our approach and hold the different spheres of government accountable, and set targets for them to respond to.
Q: Does this mean you've given mayors and municipal managers targets and deadlines?
A: There are specific issues the AG has said: listen, correct them. We have singled those issues out and called on the mayor, municipal manager, speaker and CFO to deal with them and give us responses.
Q: Wasn't it in 2018 after an oversight visit to Mangaung as Cogta minister that you promised a new approach that would ensure dysfunctional municipalities improved and, as the AG has now found, they got even worse?
A: What we're saying now is: sort the governance issues, sort parties' functionality issues, sort the issues of corruption and consequence management and we should expect to see changes to start showing. The major issue is monitoring and holding people accountable.
Q: Until there's proper accountability nothing's going to change, is it?
A: Correct. We want to see what consequence management has been effected so that those responsible for bad outcomes are dealt with.
Q: You mean fired?
A: There are processes. Once you have a proper system of following up on the audit outcome you have to set up an investigation and find out what is it that was wrong. That means somebody would have committed a crime and must be charged, or it was an administrative transgression needing a disciplinary process. For that to happen you must first set up the right structures.
Q: Are you going to give them tight deadlines so they don't take forever?
A: We have itemised issues that must be attended to, and are getting three-monthly reports which will go to the provincial and national committees at the same time.
Q: What will happen to them if they miss your deadlines?
A: We have said they must take certain actions and provide for what happens in the event they miss the deadline.
Q: There's been a lot of talk about accountability.
A: Exactly.
Q: As Cogta minister you talked a lot about accountability too, but we know there was never accountability. Why must we believe you now?
A: The major issue is the role of parliament in following up to make sure things are done. The AG has said if there's proper supervision from provincial the results improve, and we want to make sure that happens.
Q: Does Gauteng's supervision of the Joburg metro give you any confidence?
A: We as parliament are going to make sure that they monitor and act on time.
Q: Until cadre deployment ends is there any hope of fixing municipalities?
A: No party should subscribe to people being appointed when they do not qualify.
Q: Would you agree it's because of incompetence that municipalities are broken?
A: It's because of people who do not qualify and get given the post.
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