Nkadimeng: Damaged, ageing infrastructure biggest obstacle to service delivery
Minister of Cooperative Governance Thembi Nkadimeng says the damaged and ageing infrastructure remains the biggest obstacle to service delivery at a municipal level.
Speaking at the ANC’s national executive committee meeting on Sunday, Nkadimeng admitted there had not been sufficient investment in the maintenance of municipal infrastructure.
"Man-made disruptions to infrastructure, like cable theft, are a huge problem because the service is already available to people, but it is damaged, unlike where a service has not been given by municipalities.
"In Gauteng, there could be disruptions of services, precisely because we might not have anticipated the migration growth.”
Speaking at the same briefing, Deputy Minister of Cooperative Governance Tau Parks fingered payment disputes between municipalities and service providers as another factor hampering delivery.
"In many instances, the deficiencies with regards to service delivery are a result of disputes around payments and debts owed to agencies. This is a specific area of intervention that we have identified.
"You would know that in the past week, as a result of our intervention, there has been a decision to extend the Eskom debt to municipalities so that we are able to address whatever challenges we are related to.
"There has been a focused attention in ensuring that expenditure on municipal grants improves, all municipalities receive grants from the national government, there has been an observation on underperformance in relation to those grants," said Tau.
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