Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Thembi Nkadimeng has outlined how her department has deployed 39 civil engineers to municipalities that are struggling in different provinces.
Nkadimeng, who was briefing the standing committee on appropriations in the National Assembly on Friday, said the 39 civil engineers have been deployed to KwaZulu-Natal, the North West, Limpopo, the Eastern Cape, and the Northern Cape to assist in managing projects and ensure their implementation.
She said they were intervening in municipalities because there has been a lack of project implementation and service delivery.
The Municipal Infrastructure Support Agent (MISA) was trying to help officials with project management.
Nkadimeng said they were supporting many municipalities to improve their technical capacity before they collapse.
There are currently 66 dysfunctional municipalities. The Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, said Nkadimeng, was deploying civil engineers to municipalities on the brink of collapse.
"MISA, through their programme, then also looks into areas where we have project managers to oversee and educate internal staff. We have allocated one in every province. Yes, it’s not sufficient. It actually burns the project manager out because he tries on the identified municipalities.
“For example, in the Free State, North West, and KwaZulu-Natal, there are quite a number of municipalities that are between medium and risky, which we don’t want them to fall to a dysfunctional (state) but we have to make sure we assist them in how they spend and project manage.
“The same when you look at every province that received the project manager with an assistant, the chief engineer, and civil engineers—about 39 of them in total,” said Nkadimeng.
She said the civil engineers have been deployed to municipalities that are in trouble.
The Chief Financial Officer in the department, Funani Matlatsi, also told members of the appropriations committee that they would also be helping municipalities that were failing to spend their municipal infrastructure grants.
There were 55 municipalities failing to spend their infrastructure grants, and they are in the Eastern Cape, North West, Limpopo, and Northern Cape.
Matlatsi said 27 of these were part of the 66 dysfunctional municipalities.
siyabonga.mkhwanazi@inl.co.za
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