Government was acutely sensitive to the need to improve the capacity of weaker municipalities to deliver services, Provincial and Local Government Minister Sydney Mufamadi said yesterday at a Community Participation Conference in Midrand yesterday.

Mufamadi said last November that government was sending teams to 132 of SA’s 284 municipalities to tackle problems such as poor billing systems, municipal debt, the provision of free basic services and local economic development.

He said the deployment of resources to municipalities would only work if locals were involved in the process. "Municipal managers must identify local people who can learn from those deployed."

Mufamadi attributed public unrest in Free State towns and growing disgruntlement in other areas to a lack of proper communication between municipal authorities and residents.

A survey of all 284 municipalities in 2003 found that at least 226 had difficulty collecting enough revenue to finance the provision of services.

Almost half needed urgent help to deal with billing systems, municipal debt and provision of free basic services. I-Net Bridge, Hopewell Radebe