Development Chamber Activities
Completed:
Municipal Systems Bill
The Municipal Systems Bill provides for the development of the
institutions, procedures and processes that are essential to
developing the governance capacity to ensure that local government
is responsive to the needs of communities. A task team of the
Development Chamber met 6 times to receive briefings and negotiate
the Bill. While the task team established substantial areas of
consensus, government's timetable meant that the task team was not
able to resolve all outstanding issues. It was agreed that
constituencies would raise outstanding concerns with the
Parliamentary Portfolio Committee.
Infrastructure Delivery Survey
In December 1998, Nedlac constituencies and the Department of
Constitutional Development commissioned a review of infrastructure
delivery in South Africa. The review took two parts:
- Over 60 interviews with public officials involved in
infrastructure delivery.
- A survey of 3000 households in the provinces of KwaZulu-Natal;
the Northern Province and Gauteng.
The research reflected the tremendous progress made by the
democratic government in improving the lives of South Africans.
Since 1994, the Department of Housing has allocated more than 1
million housing subsidies. The survey revealed that almost 60% of
low-income households and households in informal settlements were
aware of the housing subsidy scheme. This indicates the
government's success in communicating with large numbers of the
population about their new rights. An overwhelming majority of
people living in informal settlements felt that health care
services had improved over the last 5-year period. Similarly the
majority of households reported that telephone, electricity and
refuse removal services all worked consistently. Significantly
respondents felt that new services had improved their ability to
engage in economic and social activities.
The survey also revealed areas for improvement. While the
majority of respondents rated the service received from medical
doctors as being good, those who attended government hospitals and
clinics were less likely to rate the service received as good.
Almost a quarter of households reported a shortage of learning
material in their children's schools. People in rural areas have
greater difficulties in accessing social and infrastructure
services than those in urban, formal areas.
Coupled to the need to address these areas of weakness there are
enormous challenges that continue to face our society. High numbers
of people reported being unemployed and this burden lies most
heavily on black women. 17% of people in the survey went hungry at
least once a week. Indeed a mere 19% of people living in informal
settlements said that they never go hungry. Black and coloured
households were most likely to experience hunger. The matriculation
rate remains beneath 50%.
The full report can be downloaded from the Nedlac website and a
summarised version was launched in May 2000. The Development
Chamber is currently reviewing the research to establish areas in
which it can make a contribution to improving service delivery.
White Paper: Transformation of the Construction
Industry
During 1998 /99 Nedlac constituencies participated in the
Minister of Transport's reference group that formed part of the
Inter-Ministerial Task Team responsible for the drafting of the
White Paper. In the year under review the constituencies determined
that the White Paper reflected all their concerns. This process
which enabled constituencies to input at an early stage into policy
development, resulted in a more effective process as the White
Paper accommodated the central concerns of each constituency. The
Bill will be tabled in the chamber during 2000\01 for further
discussions.
Work in progress
During the latter half of 1999\2000 the chamber received a
series of briefings to enable them to focus their work programme
for the next period. Issues on which the chamber has received
briefings are:
- HIV/AIDS
- Poverty eradication
- Public Works integrated rural development strategy