Q: If economic development is the responsibility of local government, why aren’t we seeing it?
A: Because of a number of things.
Q: How can there be economic development without basic services?
A: Basic services are a result of financial muscle.
Q: How can there be financial muscle when they’re losing R268bn in fruitless and wasteful expenditure in one year?
A: Wasteful expenditure doesn’t mean the money has been stolen.
Q: We’re talking unauthorised, irregular expenditure, aren’t we?
A: That amount is also about the way you project your expenditure, and in the way you execute your duties and responsibilities.
Q: Surely the bottom line is that this money has gone and there are no systems to recover it?
A: Exactly. The system has to be co-operative. If you want to recover the money, the first thing you need to do is use your state security, but also with an understanding of what is happening at the Madlanga commission.
Q: How can you say economic development must be the responsibility of municipalities when Madlanga and the auditor-general tell us they are bankrupt, ethically and financially?
A: You’re driving a theory that says because they’re bankrupt, we mustn’t do anything. And that is wrong.
Q: The government is trying to do something, and you’re worried municipalities will be excluded from potential revenue streams?
A: The point I’m making is that you cannot wish away the function of a municipality. When you take away the opportunity for municipalities to grow their economies and invest the revenue they generate in service delivery, you are crippling service delivery.
Q: Aren’t municipalities dysfunctional because they’re not held accountable for how they use that revenue?
A: Dysfunctionality comes from the design of municipalities — the system we’ve never properly funded.
Q: Doesn’t it come from incompetence, corruption and cadre deployment?
A: You may employ a suitable, highly qualified individual, but that person will never change that municipality until such time government as a system works together with local government.
Q: So professionalising municipalities will make no difference?
A: I’m saying professionalisation must be accompanied by a plethora of support, including financial support. There is no point in recruiting a qualified engineer to work in a poor municipality with no revenue.
Q: We’re not just talking poor rural municipalities. Why is Johannesburg so dysfunctional and bankrupt?
A: Can you rather ask how it arrived there?
Q: Is there a short answer?
A: How can the City of Johannesburg survive with 20,000 foreign nationals or immigrants coming into the municipality every month?
Q: You’re saying the city hasn’t collapsed because of incompetence, corruption and not ring-fencing the water money but rather because of immigrants?
A: The point I’m making is that the City of Johannesburg, even if it ring-fences the money, is not going to be able to deliver on infrastructure [when one considers] the number of immigrants coming there every month.
Q: So the cause of the city’s collapse is immigration?
A: No, no. If I said that, I’d be shifting the blame ... The city has to manage a plethora of interrelated issues. But one of the fundamental reasons [for the decline] that you cannot wish away is the city’s receiving 20,000 people a month. That fact plays a significant role in putting pressure on the municipality, its informal settlements and its infrastructure in general.
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