Local Democracy In Action: Mploweni and the Struggle for Free Basic Services

Описание: Built Environment Support Group (BESG) partnered with community organisations in Mpolweni and conducted local government budget activism in 2017 as part of the 'Accounting for Basic Services' Project.*

The community budget activists selected free basic water and write off of historical municipal debt as the budget activism issue.

The specific focus of their budget activism was to gain an understanding of the process prescribed by the Indigent Policy and Policy on Debt Write-offs in order to support vulnerable households’ access free basic services and benefit from the write off of historical municipal service debts.

In February 2017 BESG supported the CBO in conducting a baseline study involving 225 households, with the aim of assessing the level of awareness by the members of the Mpolweni community regarding indigent support and ascertain their level of indebtedness.

The 2017/8 Integrated Development Plan records various commitments running to several million Rands to update the indigent register, promote access to basic water services, and communicate water provision and drought awareness information at community level.

Four months into the new financial year the CBO reported that uMDM had not disseminated any information to communities.

In response the Mpolweni CBO, with logistical support from BESG, embarked on a Mass Registration Drive to assist qualifying households in applying for Indigent support.

A total of 343 people were assisted on the day of the drive. A total of 251 applications were submitted to uMDM for processing directly after the drive.
The exercise was a true expression of citizen empowerment and a demonstration to the District that much can be achieved with a little will and human resource capacity.

Between 2016 and 2018, Afesis-Corplan, the Built Environment Support Group (BESG), the Heinrich Böll Foundation (HBF) Southern Africa Office, Isandla Institute and PlanAct have jointly implemented a project entitled “Accounting for basic services: Tackling the inadequate use of resources by municipalities and building a rights-based approach to service delivery” – referred to as the ABS Project. The project has been supported by the EU Delegation to South Africa