LOLO MAPHOPHE
THE Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA) is confident that the Local Government: Municipal Systems Amendment Bill will be ready for public participation in November or December as per their project plan presented to the Portfolio Committee on Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs recently.
This follows the department’s missed submission of the regulatory Socio-Economic Impact Assessment Report on the Local Government: Municipal Systems Amendment Bill to the Portfolio Committee.
Subsequently, the department wrote a letter to the Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Faith Muthambi.
However, the committee felt that the letter was “confusing” and ordered the department to revise the letter and present it at a later date.
In spite of these developments, the department is confident that it is on course for the process to get the bill approved by parliament as outlined in their action plan.
Director-General of COGTA, Avril Williamson, proposed that the process should continue so that the bill could be made into law.
Williamson further said that “after the process that this portfolio committee has undertaken, there’s another process that parliament must do that is subjecting this bill for public comment.”
The confusion stems from lack of clarity on some aspects of the department’s presentation to the committee following their presentation through a letter written to the Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Faith Muthambi.
The Portfolio Committee meeting forms part of a series of steps taken to see the approval by parliament of the bill into law.
The Local Government: Municipal Systems Amendment Bill is aimed at refining local government human capital processes and procedures.
According to parliament, the bill aims “to ensure stability and consistency in the local government workforce. To ensure that these systems and procedure are consistent with uniform standards prescribed by the Minister.”
In particular, the bill will address and regulate the appointment of political representatives to managerial positions in municipalities.
To this end, the bill has been presented to various stakeholders who have provided their inputs.
The current process will be followed by the bill being presented to parliament in August 2020 as stated by Muthambi.
At the end, department clarified that the letter was not meant to cause confusion and resolved to correct its contents for submission at a later date.
“The whole intention (of the action plan) was to make sure that within this calendar year, the bill’s parliamentary process should have been completed,” added COGTA’s Tebogo Motlashuping.
Motlashuping said that the action plan was also presented to the Presidency and “based on the action plan, the Presidency then gave us the go-ahead and issued us with a certificate.”
Muthambi recommended that the DG write a letter that outlines the bill’s steps in clearer terms to avoid any future.
(Compiled by Inside Metros staff)