Last newsletter of the year.

Last bulletin of the year.
For contact details for other ratepayers, please go to CONTACTS on the
NTU/NBU website www.ntu-sa.net
Please pass this on to all interested and affected parties.
Number 26
December 17, 2009

During this year one thing has become very clear: ratepayers
associations are the only organizations that are effectively combating
the non-existence of service delivery. The laws regarding local
government are fair and equitable. But municipalities are not abiding
by these laws. On the one hand, citizens are expected to pay rates
and taxes, and are punished if they don't. On the other hand, local
governments are expected to be transparent and inclusive and
accountable, and there has been no evidence of that this year from any
municipality. It is easy to collect a debt, not so easy to demand
responsibility. This last year has shown that ratepayers need to
become a lot more active in order to make sure that this one-sidedness
doesn't become the norm.

For instance, new legislation sets out remuneration for ward
committees, but also sets out their duties. There should be no
remuneration without performance. Ratepayers should decide if ward
committees are working or not. Do ratepayers work with the ward
committees or do they demand that they be replaced? If anyone would
like to start a debate or seek consensus on this, this forum is
available for that purpose.

• Electricity tariff hikes: Alan Smaldon has compiled an objection
letter and you can contact him to ask how you can lodge a complaint:
asmaldon@chillibyte.com
• The ratepayers of Kirkwood, in the Eastern Cape, got a court
interdict to remove their municipal manager, who had been dismissed
for fraud and then re-instated by the ANC council. The costs of the
action are to borne by the municipal manager. So – it CAN be done!
If you would like to find out how the Kirkwood Ratepayers managed it,
contact Louise at kowiegrand@intekom.co.za
• FEKRRA (Kouga and Jeffrey's Bay) is growing with the addition of
Humansdorp. The issue here is misuse of taxpayers' money.
• The Tshwane Metro council has been found guilty of contempt of court
after they failed to reconnect the electricity of a resident who has
declared a dispute.
• The Louis Trichaardt ratepayers have applied to the municipality to
become external service providers in order to clean up the sewage
works that are discharging raw sewage into nearby rivers.
• Nersa has published the approved electricity charges for each
municipality. This is a list of what your municipality should be
charging you for electricity. The list cannot be loaded onto the
website as it is the wrong format, but it can be obtained by sending
me a mail.
• Residents of Heilbron won an interdict against the council to
prevent electricity cut-offs in the case of disputes, but the legal
costs (for the council to pay) have run to almost R100 000. This is
money that could have been far better spent in fixing things rather
than fighting the residents in court.
• The Special Investigating Unit (SUI) will be investigating all 24
municipalities in the North West, where local government has all but
collapsed. The main culprit is named as the ANC cadre deployment
system, which has stripped municipalities of all skills and experience
and given jobs to party loyalists. This is the first investigation of
its kind. It might be an interesting precedent for other regions.
• In Durban, I reported the municipality to the office of the Public
Protector, as I have been trying in vain for eighteen months to get an
explanation of the 'interim' charges on my Metro Bill. All my
numerous letters have been ignored, and my services have been
disconnected four times. And all I want is an explanation! I
received an acknowledgement of my PP complaint after two months. I
will be taking this up next year so watch this space.
• The Kroonstad municipality is R32 million in arrears with Eskom.
The ratepayers want to know what has happened to the money that was
paid by residents to the council for electricity. No answer yet from
the Premier's office.
• Good news from Dullstroom is that the municipality is working
together with ratepayers to solve problems, and the co-operation is
having great success.
• A resident of Johannesburg has called a dispute with her
municipality because her rates went from R60 per month to R1 555, an
increase of more than 2 000 per cent. According to her complaint, her
rates should be closer to R134 per month. At the time of writing,
there is no further news about the outcome of the dispute.
• Judging by the number of alarming news reports, pollution of our
water sources has reached crisis proportions. Even the government has
noticed, although their response has been to appoint committees and
working groups, and not actually to do anything about the pollution.
The NTU has an active water committee and appears to be the only body
that is concerned with direct action. Details for the water committee
are on the website.

If you would like to be placed on this mailing list, please send a
reply to nikimoore@7th-Avenue.co.za

Have a good end-of-year break, and we look forward to picking up the
cudgels again in 2010!

--

Remarks from CBS Sunday Morning - Ben Stein

I Only hope we find GOD again before it is too late

The following was written by Ben Stein and recited by him on CBS Sunday
Morning Commentary.

My confession:

I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does
not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up,
bejeweled trees, Christmas trees. I don't feel threatened. I don't feel
discriminated against. That's what they are, Christmas trees.

It doesn't bother me a bit when people say, 'Merry Christmas' to me. I don
t think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In
fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all brothers and sisters
celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn't bother me at all that there
is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in
Malibu .. If people want a crèche, it's just as fine with me as is the
Menorah a few hundred yards away.

I don't like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don't think
Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people
who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period.. I
have no idea where the concept came from, that Americais an explicitly
atheist country.. I can't find it in the Constitution and I don't like it
being shoved down my throat.

Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we
should worship celebrities and we aren't allowed to worship God as we
understand Him? I guess that's a sign that I'm getting old, too. But there
are a lot of us who are wondering where these celebrities came from and
where the America we knew went to.

In light of the many jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a
little different: This is not intended to be a joke; it's not funny, it's
intended to get you thinking.

Billy Graham 's daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson
asked her 'How could God let something like this happen?' (regarding
Hurricane Katrina ).. Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and
insightful response. She said, 'I believe God is deeply saddened by this,
just as we are, but for years we've been telling God to get out of our
schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives. And
being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out. How can we
expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave
us alone?'

In light of recent events... Terrorists attack, school shootings, etc. I
think it started when Madeleine Murray O'Hare (she was murdered, her body
found a few years ago) complained she didn't want prayer in our schools, and
we said OK. Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school. The
Bible says thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor
as yourself. And we said OK.

Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn't spank our children when they
misbehave, because their little personalities would be warped and we might
damage their self-esteem (Dr.. Spock 's son committed suicide). We said an
expert should know what he's talking about. And we said okay.

Now we're asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don
t know right from wrong, and why it doesn't bother them to kill strangers,
their classmates, and themselves.

Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out.
I think it has a great deal to do with 'WE REAP WHAT WE SOW.'

Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world
s going to hell. Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question
what the Bible says. Funny how you can send 'jokes' through e-mail and they
spread like wildfire, but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord
people think twice about sharing. Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and
obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of
God is suppressed in the school and workplace.

Are you laughing yet?

Funny how when you forward this message, you will not send it to many on
your address list because you're not sure what they believe, or what they
will think of you for sending it.

Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than
what God thinks of us.

Pass it on if you think it has merit.

If not, then just discard it..... No one will know you did. But, if you
discard this thought process, don't sit back and complain about what bad
shape the world is in.

My Best Regards, Honestly and respectfully,

Ben Stein

SA Today: The New Erasmus Commission

I was attending the Western Province Rugby Awards dinner on Tuesday
night when I received this SMS from my son: "Mom and dad, our water
has been cut off. What do we need to do?"

I smiled to myself and replied: "You obviously used too much water
today. Wait until midnight and it will come back on again."

The "cut-off" was the result of the water management device I had
installed in my home earlier this year. These devices provide each
household with 200 litres of water a day, free, at the normal flow
rate. People who register on the City of Cape Town's indigency
database get 350 litres per day, free (the most generous free
allocation in the country). Whatever is not used gets carried over to
the
next day. You can get additional water every day if you specify how
much you are prepared to pay per month.

The purpose of the device is to save water (crucial in light of the
growing shortages), to help residents avoid running up huge bills they
cannot afford (often because of leaks), and to ensure that the
municipality can viably provide every member of the public with access
to free, clean water, as is their constitutional right.

Contrary to the ANC's propaganda, the City does not cut off water to
domestic properties. In the most extreme circumstances, when people
have failed to respond to overdue bills for months and months, they
may be put on the trickle system. If your toilet cistern is filling
up on the "trickle system" it will seem as if nothing is coming out of
your tap until the cistern is full. That may be
irritating and inconvenient, but in every instance where people are
placed on the "trickle system" they could have avoided it by taking a
small measure of personal responsibility. They could have gone to
their local council office and made fair arrangements to pay off their
arrears. Or they could have registered on the City's indigency
database and had a free water management device installed.
Then they would continue to get their generous free daily allocation
on full flow. People who end up on the "trickle system" have made no
effort to do either.

If people experience problems they can use the City's SMS line
dedicated solely to dealing with water and sanitation problems. There
is a 24-hour call out service for emergency cases.

No other City in the country offers this kind of comprehensive service.

And yet the Minister of Co-operative Governance and Traditional
Affairs, Sicelo Shiceka, is devoting his energies to proving that the
City of Cape Town is cutting off people's water and not delivering
services.

Why is a national Minister targeting a municipality which is a model
of good governance and efficiency in comparison with most ANC run
local authorities? And why now?

For those who understand how the ANC works, the answer is obvious. The
whole affair gives me a distinct sense of déjà vu.

It was a strange synchronicity that in the very week that we closed
the final chapter of the Erasmus Commission, I received a letter from
Minister Shiceka requesting me to report to a newly established
Ministerial Task Team on Water Cut-offs, Electricity, Sanitation and
Housing in the City of Cape Town.

This is another unlawful political witch-hunt, make no mistake.

Like the Erasmus Commission, it involves the abuse of state resources
by the ANC for the purpose of smearing a DA-led government in the
run-up to an election.

Like the Erasmus Commission, it reveals the ANC's underlying
intolerance of democracy when it loses an election and its willingness
to ride roughshod over the Constitution to achieve its political
objectives.

And, like the Erasmus Commission, the Task Team is based on a flimsy
pretext. According to Minister Shiceka, in a letter he wrote to
Provincial Local Government Minister Anton Bredell, he decided to set
up the Task Team because of a single letter from a member of the
public with a water-related grievance. "This [letter] clearly
demonstrates the problem is bigger than we have discovered.
Consequently, I have decided to establish a Task Team comprising
representatives from the three spheres, that is National, Provincial
and Local Government," wrote Minister Shiceka.

The only other 'evidence' that Minister Shiceka has of water cut-offs
are from his visit to Cape Town last month when he discovered that
some people in Mitchells Plain were without running water. The fact
that it later emerged that this was the work of ANC activists has not
deterred him.

When I went to Mitchells Plain to investigate, people told me that ANC
activists had requested them to switch off their water at the
stop-cock before the Minister's visit. The people I spoke to were so
sure of their story that they were willing to make sworn affidavits to
this effect.

It is worth quoting one of the affidavits in full:

On Tuesday 29 September 2009 at about 09h15, I heard a person calling
on a loud hailer. I saw [name of ANC activist] and he was asking
people to come to a meeting and bring along their water accounts.

He then approached me and asked me if I can turn my water off at the
stop cork (sic) and when some one ask me about my water, I must say
that my water was disconnected.

I then told him that I am not interested because my water is only
R00.00 cents; I've only have to pay the connection fee of about
R420.00 and that I also receive about 350 litres a day free.

I also state that this is not the first time that he is calling for
the community to give them their water bills and to turn off their
water.

The ANC's willingness to engage in dirty tricks knows no bounds. But,
as with the Erasmus Commission, there are those who will argue that,
if the City has nothing to hide, it will welcome the opportunity to
'clear its name' by participating in the Task Team.

We refused to testify at the Erasmus Commission because it would have
given credence to a process designed to impugn a DA-led administration
for political purposes. Lies and distortions would have been presented
in the press daily as if they were fact. The ANC are masters of the
Goebbels school of propaganda: if you repeat a lie often enough, some
people may begin to believe it.

It is for this reason that neither the City nor the Province will take
part in the open session in Parliament arranged by the Task Team. Even
the Erasmus Commission attempted to present a veneer of legality by
appointing a judge to head it. The Task Team, by contrast, solely
comprises ANC deployees such as former MEC for Local Government and
Housing Richard Dyantyi (who played a key role in
driving the Erasmus Commission).

If Minister Shiceka was really concerned about the state of service
delivery in local government in general and Cape Town in particular,
he would appoint an independent body to undertake a service delivery
audit of every municipality in the country.

In fact this study has already been done. In a recent survey of 231
local municipalities, 46 district municipalities and six metropolitan
municipalities, independent economic empowerment rating agency
Empowerdex found that Cape Town was the best performer in terms of
housing, water, waste removal and sanitation delivery. And this is
despite the fact that there are 222 informal settlements,
mostly on invaded land -- primarily the result of thousands of
people fleeing the conditions in ANC governed provinces.

So why the obsession with Cape Town when it is obvious that the real
problems are elsewhere?

Why is the Task Team not investigating the death of eight people from
Mpheko village in the Eastern Cape after they drank tap water that had
been polluted with faecal matter due to the municipality's failure to
maintain the water treatment plant?

Why is the Task Team not investigating why sewage runs like a river
down the streets of Odendaalsrus in the Free State (as I witnessed
during the election campaign this year)?

Why is the Task Team not investigating the fact that Thokoza informal
settlement in Gauteng has only four water points for tens of thousands
of households?

The answer is that these things are happening in ANC-governed
provinces and municipalities, so they are being covered up. Meanwhile,
the DA is selectively targeted and smeared.

According to the legal advice we have received, the Task Team is
unlawful because it disregards the principles of co-operative
governance set out in the Constitution. I have today written to
Minister Shiceka requesting that we meet to resolve the matter, as
envisaged in the Intergovernmental Relations Act. I hope that we can
avoid an intergovernmental dispute. But, if necessary, I am willing to
fight this power abuse all the way to the constitutional court. The
ANC's abuse of power is the single greatest threat to our democracy,
in every context, and we have to take a stand to stop it.

Minister Shiceka has reportedly put the hearings on hold until he
receives legal advice on the matter. To assist, I would be quite happy
to furnish him with a copy of the Erasmus Commission Court Judgment.
After all, those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

SA Today: The truth about cadre deployment

Various important developments this week form an interesting political
pattern. They seem unrelated, but if one joins the dots, the
implications are clear. the ANC's policy of cadre deployment is
coming home to roost, with devastating consequences for our emerging
democracy.

The DA has warned for over a decade that cadre deployment is the root
cause of the "failed state". But these criticisms have never been
taken seriously. The ANC has managed to disguise cadre deployment as
"racial transformation". Anyone who opposes it, therefore, is labeled
a racist. This has bludgeoned many critics into silence.

For a democracy to work, power must be held to account. Power abuse
must be checked and prevented. For this reason, the institutions of
state, (such as the courts, the electoral commission and the public
broadcaster) must be genuinely independent from the ruling party.
They must be accountable to their constitutional mandate. They must
protect the public interest, not the party's interests.
This is where the notion of the separation of powers comes from. The
concept covers both the distinction between the party and the state,
and the separation of powers within the institutions of the state:
the executive, the legislature and the judiciary. The "separation of
powers" is the cornerstone of accountable democracy.

Cadre deployment is deliberately designed to destroy the "separation
of powers" and ensure that the institutions of state act in the
party's interests. The "party's interests" are defined by a small
inner circle, responsible for "deploying cadres" to all positions of
power. That is why the battle of Polokwane was so pivotal. It
determined which faction in the ANC would define the party's
interests and deploy its "loyal cadres" to control the institutions of state.

Cadre deployment is justified by a deceptively simple argument: the
people voted for the ANC. Therefore in deploying its cadres, the ANC
is acting on the mandate of the people. But the lessons of history
are clear. Inevitably, and immediately, the absence of effective
independent institutions leads to power abuse. On our continent, the
trajectory to the failed state has been direct:
centralization of power and "cadre deployment" lead to cronyism,
corruption and the criminal state.

In this context, the front page article in the Sunday newspaper, City
Press, was very significant. The newspaper reported that the ANC was
rethinking its cadre deployment policy because it was the "key reason
for the collapse of local government".

"Deployed cadres are perceived to have crippled service delivery in
many municipalities" the newspaper stated, noting that a culture of
"patronage and nepotism" had become so rife in municipalities that
they have become inaccessible and unaccountable. "The lack of
values, principles or ethics…indicates that there are officials and
public representatives for whom public service is not a concern,
but accruing wealth at the expense of the poor is"

It is a huge step forward that the root cause of the failed local
state is being recognized -- at least in some ANC circles.

It is also a good thing that the national government is reportedly
planning to strip ANC provincial and regional executive committees of
their powers to deploy party officials rather than appoint
professionals to municipal positions. The problem is that, instead,
the ANC plans to centralize its deployment powers nationally --
which will predictably make the consequences of cadre deployment
even worse.

This was dramatically and powerfully illustrated as events unfolded
during the week.

On Tuesday, President Zuma convened a meeting to discuss the crisis in
local government with mayors and municipal managers from throughout
South Africa. The most interesting aspect of this meeting was the
frank analysis by various mayors, of the impact of "cadre deployment"
on service delivery. One mayor complained that the local ANC
structures in her town regarded her as a deployed cadre.
This meant she could not fulfill her functions as mayor. When she
sought to take an impartial decision in the interests of good
governance, she was countermanded. She was told that unless she
followed the party's instructions she would be "redeployed". The
party's instructions, of course, come from a small clique of local
leaders, usually seeking to promote their personal wealth and
influence.

Another mayor received applause when she described service delivery
boycotts as a manifestation of faction fights within the ruling party.
If one local ANC faction controlled "deployment" into local
government structures, an opposing ANC faction would deliberately
disrupt service delivery (by blocking the sewage system, for example)
in order to create a reason for people to protest in the
streets. This was then dressed up as a "service delivery" protest,
with the express purpose of achieving the redeployment of local
leaders, and replacing them with their rivals.

Before the week had ended, this prediction had come to pass.

Julius Malema was given a hero's welcome in Standerton, when he
arrived to announce the "recall" of the Lekwa mayor, the speaker, the
chief whip and all members of the mayoral committee. Significantly it
was not the Minister of Local Government, Sicelo Shiceka, who went to
Lekwa to issue instructions. It was Malema, the populist demagogue,
who showed he was in charge. Malema's visit to Lekwa
this week demonstrated exactly what the ANC meant when it said it
would remove "deployment powers" from local ANC structures, and
centralize them nationally.

Ironically, as Malema was firing the Lekwa mayor, an independent
ranking of local authorities placed the municipal district in which
the Lekwa council is situated, in fourth position -- a very good
ranking -- on the service delivery improvement index of local
government throughout South Africa.

Irrespective of whether the Lekwa mayor and the mayoral committee were
doing their jobs properly, or whether their removal from office was
justified, the implication of their firing is clear. As the ANC's
faction fights intensify, they will increasingly manifest themselves
as "service delivery protests" with the aim of repeating the Lekwa
precedent. It is not far-fetched to imagine Julius
Malema and his cohorts controlling a centralized "deployment"
committee, determining which ANC cadres will control every
municipality. Any mayor or municipal manager that acts independently,
or that differs from the ANC's Malema faction, can expect to face
"service delivery protests" resulting in redeployment.

This is the inevitable result of the cadre deployment policy.
Centralising cadre deployment will make things worse, not better. It
is time to abandon cadre deployment completely and appoint or elect
people to positions on the basis of their capacity to do the job, not
as a return for political favours. It is time to restore and respect
the distinction between the party and the state.

The greatest irony of the week was that this point was stressed by
none other than Mr Joel Netshitenzhe, as he announced his resignation
from the President's office. It was Joel Netshitenzhe, as the ANC's
chief policy guru, who first articulated and promoted the cadre
deployment policy in 1997. Writing in the ANC mouthpiece Umrabulo, he
said "transformation" meant "extending the power of the
'National Liberation Movement' over all levers of power: the army, the
police, the bureaucracy, intelligent structures, the judiciary,
parastatals, and agencies such as regulatory bodies, the public
broadcaster, the central bank and so on."

He approved of this approach while the Mbeki faction was in power and
controlled cadre deployment. When this faction lost power, Mr
Netshitenzhe changed his mind. When people who abuse their power lose
their power, and become victims of power abuse themselves, they become
instant converts to the cause of preventing the abuse of power. The
wheel has turned and the man who was the architect of
the policy to fuse party and state, argues for their separation as an
essential element of democracy. Every convert is a victory in this
battle. But there is still a long fight ahead.

State of Local Government Overview Report

Fortnightly bulletin for rates and tax payers.

For summaries of all news, please go to the NTU/NBU website www.ntu-sa.net
<http://www.ntu-sa.net/>

Please pass this on to all interested and affected parties.

Number 24

October 23, 2009

Our news this week is all about the Government Report on the state of local
municipalities.

There are no surprises: the report reveals issues that have been agitating
ratepayers for years. However, this report has now brought all these issues
into the open, and ratepayer associations can now begin to pressure
municipalities to bring in change. This document would be a very important
resource for ratepayers to identify problems within their municipal
districts.

There are two very important aspects to this report:

1. The report makes mention of the fact that municipalities have been
allocated a one-size-fits-all responsibility, which not all municipalities
are able to fulfil because of factors such as their tax-base, geographical
locations, etc. (Large metros with businesses and industries fare better
than small towns with high unemployment, for instance). The report also
mentions the need for better communication between the three tiers of
government. However, you as a ratepayer should not allow your municipality
to use this as an excuse for non-delivery. Local government is going to try
everything in their power to shift the blame onto someone or something else
(it is a human response) - if they try to do this, you must point out the
second item:

2. Through-out the report, in every section and under every heading,
the point is made again and again and again that service delivery has been
compromised by political deployment, infighting, corruption, nepotism, party
loyalty and incompetence. This has been underplayed by almost everybody in
government connected with the report. However, you must not let them get
away with it - these issues have now been publicly stated and the time is
right for ratepayers to demand that something is done about it. Highlight
these issues in your own municipality and demand action.

Here are some more elements of interest out of the report:

The report ranked municipalities on various delivery mandates, such as
services, water quality, maintenance, financial controls, fiscal discipline,
debt recovery, community involvement, etc.

The worst-performing province is KZN, followed by Eastern Cape and Limpopo.
The best-performing provinces are Western Cape and Gauteng. The worst of
all the municipal districts is Mbashe in the Eastern Cape, followed by
Msinga in KZN. It was difficult to identify the best-performing
municipalities, as the top few all excelled in different areas. However,
78% of the highest-performing municipalities are in the Western Cape.

75% of municipalities cannot function without government grants. Many
municipalities have so few skills that only a fraction of the municipal jobs
are filled, and there are several municipalities that have created
extra-numery jobs with no relation to service-delivery (clearly in order to
create jobs-for-pals). In one extraordinary case, the tea lady was given
the job of Municipal Finance Manager. Another huge problem was the lack of
communication between officials in municipalities and communities.

Of the six Metros, Cape Town was the best-performing in terms of service
delivery, while Ethekwini was the worst.

I cannot post the whole report, as it is a huge document, but if anyone
wants a copy, please mail me with 'Government Report' in the subject line
and I will send it to you.

If you would like to be placed on this mailing list, please send a reply to
nikimoore@7th-Avenue.co.za