– Bulkan says $1.04B to cover range of activities

IN 2019 institutional strengthening, capacity building, community participation and financial autonomy will be key in consolidating and entrenching the local government agenda and ensuring sustainability, according to Minister of Communities Ronald Bulkan.
He made the remarks during his budget debate presentation on Thursday evening. He said continuing public education will serve as the vehicle for community involvement in local government jurisdictions and the 2019 budget allocates $1.04 Billion to cover a range of activities in these areas.

“I wish to remind members of this honourable house that prior to the enactment of the Municipal and District Councils (Amendment) Act No. 15 of 2013 and the Local Government (Amendment) Act No. 5 of 2015, local democratic organs (LDOs) were required to seek ministerial approval to conduct a significant amount of their daily affairs,” Minister Bulkan said.

He explained that the ministerial authority exercised previously has been significantly curtailed, thus allowing organs to function autonomously to a greater extent.

“These changes reduce the chances of interference by the central government in the daily affairs of local democratic organs and duly empower the organ, ‘Empowering People,’ this is why this budget can be boasted about,” he said.

Noting that although there is no silver bullet for our council’s revenue woes, the minister said the transformation and modernisation of the property assessment framework remains a priority.

He said it’s a constitutional prescription that local government areas be economically viable and have an adequate resource base for the management and development of their areas as per Article 72. “An updated property register is therefore key to council’s empowerment to be effective in the discharge of its functions and to its financial autonomy and viability. The minister of finance announced in his speech that government has agreed to invest $320M to conduct mass property valuations over an 18- month period,” Bulkan said.

Further, he noted that by the end of 2019, an updated register enabling them to make equitable decisions on the rate percentages on priorities they want to utilise. “The choice of rates will invariably determine the quantum of resources available to the council, the quality and delivery of services and level of investment in the community. However, the choice of rates will ultimately be a decision of each council, individually, not a central government one,” Minister Bulkan said.

Further, Bulkan said that as the subject minister, he does not play a part in exercising taxation, as is erroneously labelled by the opposition. This exercise, he said, is with the local democratic organs which are insulated from the whims and fancies of politicians and agencies fixated with control.

“In some local democratic organs this subvention reliance meant that central government accounted for over two-thirds of their actual expenditures. It is government’s wish to have our councils liberated of such central political control, to be guided by established norms and good governance practices; to be accountable to relevant institutions and principally, their constituents,” he said.

Minister Bulkan said that the budget recognises the importance of improving access to affordable and suitable housing; improving access to quality potable water; improve sanitation services; building the self-sufficiency of our local government system and addressing the outdated property and land values, strengthening the regional capacity to plan and implement sustainable development initiatives amongst others. He explained that this will be a significant step in equipping empowering councils, a significant step towards their eventual fiscal sustainability and independence and a further step towards empowering people and communities.