Draft!
Portfolio Committee on Provincial and Local Government
Municipal Systems Amendment Bill
Report to The National Assembly
2nd September 2003
3. The need to address the governance aspects of municipal entities comprehensively has resulted in a change in focus on the purposes of municipal entities. The current provisions of the Municipal Systems Act envisage municipal entities, in all its various forms, to be created to provide municipal services. Through separating the provisions dealing with municipal services from those dealing with the governance aspects of municipal entities by placing them in two different chapters, municipal entities can now be established for any function or power performed or exercised by a municipality. The expression "functions and powers" refers to all the functions and powers that a municipality is allowed to perform and exercise in terms of the Constitution and other applicable laws. Such functions and powers would include the provision of municipal services, as well as any aspect thereof, such as the reading of water consumption meters. However, this wider approach to the purposes for which municipal entities may be established, would also allow the establishment of municipal entities for functions of a municipality that do not necessarily relate to municipal services, such as the provision of information technology support to the municipality in general.