The Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs is considering introducing legislation to incentivise positive behaviour among municipalities, Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Pravin Gordhan said last month.

Such positive behaviour would include ensur- ing a minimum maintenance allocation of 7%, undertaking reviews of implementation capabili-ties and implementing ten-year infrastructure plans on a regional basis, he pointed out during his 2014/15 Budget Vote to Parliament.

Gordhan said the department’s support was aimed at ensuring that municipalities developed new infrastructure at a faster pace, while adhering to the relevant standards, as well as enabling municipalities to improve the operation and maintenance of existing infrastructure to ensure continuity of service provision.

“The second major focus of [the department’s] support aims at assisting municipalities to build their internal technical capacity to progressively strengthen their capability for sustainable infra-structure and service provision in the long term,” the Minister noted.

Meanwhile, Gordhan also announced that the department would, within the next few weeks, establish an advisory panel to improve the integrity of municipalities’ supply chain management and procurement systems.

The panel, which would include members of civil society and the corporate sector, would advise on how municipalities’ procurement sys-tems could be improved to inspire greater public confidence in municipal finance management.

The panel would also advise on how a new ethic and value system could be “infused among all government actors”, he said.

Further, Gordhan stated that municipalities of all sizes and locations had to start playing a more dynamic, assertive and innovative role in experimenting with economic development projects that leveraged municipalities’ under-standing of their local environment and its endowments.

“National and provincial entities must find new ways of exploring local potential to develop local economies, thereby creating jobs and contributing to a widening revenue base for municipalities, as national transfers alone cannot meet all local needs,” he stated.

Further, he said that, should the National Treasury make good on its commitment to inject an additional R1-billion into the Community Work Programme (CWP) budget for 2016/17, the CWP could be expanded to every municipality by the end of that year.

“Presently, the CWP is being implemented in 149 municipalities. The increase would further facilitate the necessary upscaling of participation levels in existing sites in order to make the achievement of the one-million CWP work opportunity target a reality by the end of 2018/19.

“This achievement would translate into an improved quality of life for one-million CWP participants, their families and their com-munities,” he noted.