During the 2020/21 financial year, the Western Cape Government’s Department of Local Government successfully achieved its 8th consecutive clean audit whilst also being able to obtain 88% of its targets for the period under review. Not only is this indicative of the sound administrative processes at work in the Western Cape, but it also shows that the Department is fulfilling its mandate: to capacitate municipalities such that they can deliver services to residents in our province.
Owing to this financial year encapsulating the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Department’s role and mandate became ever more important. This is particularly seen by the adoption of the Joint District and Metro Approach (JDMA), which has fundamentally changed the way in which the province functions with municipalities. In comparison to national government’s District Development Model, the JDMA allows for the Department to be a cooperative facilitator between the Western Cape Government and municipalities. In doing so, the Department was able to be a key role player in terms of the implementation of various projects and the strategic stakeholder in the planning of pandemic response.
This allowed the Department to rollout a number of impactful initiatives to support local governments:
- The reprioritisation of the budget allowed the Department to transfer R16.2 million to municipalities such that they would be able to provide humanitarian relief with the implementation of food security programmes;
- In the 2020/21 financial year, the Department has established the Municipal Forensic Unit. This unit is responsible for the strengthening of the internal capacity of municipalities to conduct investigations. More than R8 million has been allocated to this unit to ensure that municipalities are able to maximise their anti-corruption efforts;
- A total of 148 Community Development Workers (CDWs) were situated across the Western Cape, which is 5 more than the target set. As such, the CDWs were able to assist with improving regular engagements in community structures (e.g. churches, schools, etc.); and
- The Department also continued to support district municipalities with Aerial Fire Fighting with contracting work worth R13.8 million. This increase was essential in relation to the fire in February 2021 which destroyed 13 600 hectares of land.
MPP America says: “Over the past year under review, we were able to see a competent and proactive government in action. The Department of Local Government played a very strategic role in ensuring that municipalities were sufficiently capacitated to carry out their mandates and to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic. We will continue to monitor the Department’s work in the remainder of the 2021/22 financial year and how it will contribute towards facilitating recovery in the months to come.”