PLETTENBERG BAY NEWS - Water infrastructure in all municipalities needed "massive" upgrades, and the Department of Water and Sanitation cannot fund it all, the Western Cape minister of infrastructure, Tertius Simmers, told the Garden Route Ratepayers' Alliance recently.
The Alliance represents 28 ratepayers' associations on the Garden Route and across the Western Cape.
Simmers said the Western Cape has a R10,3 billion budget for infrastructure, of which human settlements accounted for R2,3bn.
Infrastructure funding comes from national revenue, transferred to the provinces based mainly on population numbers.
The bad news was that it is foreseen that grant funding will decline by 5-7% next year.
Simmers said the ratepaying base and the demand for housing are diverging, "putting more stress on municipalities to fund infrastructure and housing costs out of municipal funds, which means higher tariffs for ratepayers".
'Services not keeping pace'
He said services were not keeping pace, not only infrastructure, but schools and clinics, "which is putting more pressure on the system".
Simmers said that because of this the "province is looking for more support from the public in the face of dwindling government skills and funding".
He said the province was working with the auditor-general to identify and address problem areas within municipalities that are incapable of solving issues on their own.
Steve Pattinson, chairman of the Pletternberg Bay Ratepayers' Association and chairman of the Alliance, stressed the common frustration of not getting answers from councillors, municipal officials and the province.
'Participative governance'
"We would like to think that the minister left our meeting with an appreciation of the value of building and maintaining good relationships with ratepayers' associations, and also to develop a culture of participative governance through the medium of RPAs (ratepayers' associations).
"A huge depth of talent can be tapped into for the good of society and government," said Pattinson.
Martin Brassey SC, a resident of Plettenberg Bay, has provided free legal advisory services to the Plett RPA for about seven years. He has assisted in seeking to ensure that the council and its officials conduct themselves properly and in accordance with law.
The Plett RPA has occasionally approached the courts for relief only to find that the process is exasperating, bureaucratic, and very expensive.
Bill proposed
This experience has taught the RPA that other means must be sought to ensure that municipalities observe the law.
Brassey has concluded that a process of recognition, much like the recognition that management extends to trade unions, would help to ensure the "necessary propriety".
Brassey has drafted a bill, together with a model Recognition Agreement, that he thinks the Western Cape provincial government "might usefully pass into law".
The idea is that a municipality would be invited, "indeed encouraged", to give formal recognition to a ratepayers' association that could demonstrate sufficient representativeness within the community, according to Brassey.
In the agreement, "if concluded, the municipality would be expected to give the ratepayers' association certain, very limited, rights, especially to information and, importantly, to submit disputes to arbitration that cannot be resolved amicably," added Brassey.
‘We bring you the latest Garden Route, Hessequa, Karoo news’
