‘Together, serving our people with integrity and dedication to speed up service delivery” was the theme of the recent South African Local Government Association (Salga) National Members Assembly.
‘Together, serving our people with integrity and dedication to speed up service delivery” was the theme of the recent South African Local Government Association (Salga) National Members Assembly.
The annual Salga assembly is the highest local government decision-making structure and was held in Kimberley early last month where municipalities met to discuss issues in local government.
It looked at updates on key policy and restructuring initiatives such as the Local Government Turn-Around Strategy, the provincialisation of primary healthcare and national accreditation for housing.
The meeting also focused on various issues of a strategic nature such as matters of service delivery challenges within the local government sector; the progress of capacity building and skills development; consideration and formulating policy; and legislative proposals aimed at restructuring local government.
Both Executive Makana Mayor Vumile Lwana and Municipal Manager, Ntombi Baart attended the assembly. According to Lwana, a debate within Salga at the moment is that municipal workers are not treated in the same way as public servants according to the Public Service Act of 1994.
South Africa currently has a dual public service, where there are different conditions of service, codes of conduct, levels of remuneration, labour bargaining processes and so forth that apply in the public service and in local administration.
One of the disadvantages of this split in public administration that was highlighted by Lwana is that it is not possible for officials to move easily from local administration to public service and vice-versa without resigning from their positions and thus forfeiting their pension funds and medical aid schemes.
Lwana added an example where a person’s experience of working in the local administration would not be taken into account when taking up a position in public service.
The different conditions of service, such as the remuneration systems, makes local government vulnerable to issues such as corruption, Lwana said.
“We are all voted to serve, whether you are a servant on national or local level,” he added. Reportedly, the Single Public Service (SPS) Bill (initially proposed by former President Thabo Mbeki) which has been debated over a number of years aims in “harmonising the conditions under which government employees [public servants]work, in whatever department, or whatever sphere of government”.
The SPS should create a more cohesive workforce, to continue strengthening, developing and refining the system of intergovernmental relations in all spheres of government as well as delivering integrated services where the need exists. “We are moving towards a SPS in the next round of elections.
Those processes will kick in, in terms of implementation. This is quite important, if you want synergy and intergovernmental interactions,” says Lwana.
He added that the SPS will hopefully also reconcile the different financial years (which end at different times of the year) of the two governmental spheres.
According to Lwana, the single set of elections for national, provincial and local government was decided in efforts to cut down on expenses and to make the election process more consistent. “It is likely that 2011 will be the last separate elections,” he said.
