13 June 2019
The South African Communist Party has noted the release of Municipal Cost Containment Regulations (2019) by the Minister of Finance, Tito Mboweni, acting with the concurrence of the Minister of Co-Operative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma. The SACP is calling on municipalities to prioritise high quality services to our communities based on decent work for municipal workers and employment creation to reduce unemployment. Strong emphasis must be placed on systematically eliminating irregular, fruitless and wasteful spending, and on dealing decisively with all forms of corruption and violation of due processes and procedures.
The SACP in particular welcomes the newly released regulatory measures aimed at limiting the use of and reliance on consultants. To this end the regulations require municipalities to develop a fair and reasonable framework for application where the engagement of a consultant is an absolute necessity. Limiting the use of consultants is in line with the imperative of developing organic state capacity towards the realisation of a capable democratic developmental state that South Africa direly needs. Municipalities need to put in place systems for professional career pathing and appoint professionals instead of relying on outsourcing their functions and therefore on consultants.
The regulations further strengthen controls on the purchase and rental of vehicles for political office bearers, with emphasis on cost effective options, and call for utilisation of municipal fleet by both office bearers and officials where it is viable before incurring costs on hiring vehicles. The SACP welcome this move. In addition the SACP particularly welcomes the limitation of flights on flying times of five hours or less to economy tickets for both office bearers and officials. This effectively limits domestic flying to economy tickets. Moreover, the regulations limit international travel to meetings or events that are considered critical and bring municipal cost containment with some of the measures that have been in place in the broader public service. It is important to articulate and give practical expression to a unified public service while ensuring that nothing compromises effective delivery of high quality services to our people.
ISSUED BY THE SOUTH AFRICAN COMMUNIST PARTY | SACP
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