Bill for govt power approved
2009-04-16 16:03
Cape Town - Cabinet has approved the controversial draft Constitution 17th amendment bill, which further empowers national government to intervene at local government level.
The bill will now be gazetted for public comment before being submitted to Parliament, government spokesperson Themba Maseko told a media briefing on Thursday on the outcomes of Wednesday's Cabinet meeting.
"This bill vests national government with new powers of intervention at local government level to facilitate service delivery and to achieve regional efficiencies and economies of scale at local government level.
"The bill will also facilitate the restructuring of the electricity distribution industry and possible regionalisation of other municipal functions when necessary," Maseko said.
The draft bill has been lambasted by the Democratic Alliance as evidence of the extent of the ANC's plans to change the Constitution and entrench its powers.
DA leader Helen Zille said earlier this week the bill showed the ANC wanted to reduce municipalities to administrative arms of central government.
"This will enable a centralised ANC to severely limit the mandate of elected local government, especially where the ANC does not govern and where local authorities legitimately refuse to implement ANC policies."
"Nullify voters' choice"
If the ANC managed to pass this constitutional amendment, giving itself a range of reasons to undermine local government, it could effectively nullify voters' choice and enforce ANC policy from the centre, Zille said.
However, both the ANC and the SA Local Government Association (Salga) have rejected these claims.
Responding to Zille, ANC spokesperson Jessie Duarte said the party had no intention to diminish in any way the constitutional powers of local government.
"In fact, the ANC is determined that local government should be better empowered and have greater capacity so that it can respond to the needs of the people," she said.
Salga said the proposed constitutional amendment was a bid by government to speed up plans to create six regional electricity distributors and remove delivery deadlocks.
It added that while it was still debating its position with members, it was not in favour of an amendment that would lead to "an outright removal of the municipalities' executive authority over electricity reticulation" as this would have severe financial implications for local governments.
- SAPA