Hangana makes the closing remarks at the Mayoral Conference, Cape Town
Convention Center
25 May 2006
Programme Director
Honourable Minister for Provincial and Local Government
MECs Responsible For Local Government Affairs
Mayors and Executive Mayors
Officials from all spheres of government
Members of the media
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen
Allow me to express, on behalf of Department of Provincial and Local
Government (dplg) and the Ministry our sincere words of appreciation to all of
you for honouring this important inaugural conference of mayors that takes
place shortly after our second Local Government elections. I understand it has
been quite a long day, which is why I will not take long.
I would like to thank all the participants for their invaluable
contributions in the commissions. These will indeed assist us in the refining
and implementation of our strategic priorities, key of which is to improve
capacity and accountability mechanisms, mainstreaming of the hands-on support
to municipalities so as to improve their performance as well as improving our
communication as Local Government.
To the MECs responsible for Local Government Affairs, we value the support
that you have and continue to demonstrate in supporting our municipalities so
that indeed in the end we realise our goal of making them self-sufficient
service delivery and development agents. As we enter the second leg of our
democratic Local Government System, this is one support we will continue to ask
of you.
To our newly elected mayors, we welcome you to our Local Government family
and at the same time wish to apologise that we will expect you to be the Local
Government Aircrafts, because they always hit and leave the ground whilst
running. So there is no time for your typical induction process.
The minister said a lot this morning about what is expected of you and for
me the easiest way to comprehend some of the things he said would be for
individual mayors to ask themselves one simple question â why am I elected
mayor? Why am I an elected councillor? If this question is innocently answered
we will have no difficulty realising our strategic objectives that we have set
for ourselves for the next five years.
The next five years will be fundamentally different regarding the kind of
support that both national and provincial government spheres will be providing
to municipalities. Different in that, it will be characterised by intensive
intergovernmental collaboration, and of course hands-on support.
It is my understanding, which is why I am thanking you in advance, but in
case I am wrong I withdraw this appreciation, that as we leave this house, we
leave it with 100% ownership of all the things that were discussed and agreed
upon, we leave it with full preparedness to provide our mighty political
support to all municipalities around the country. It is only when we are 100%
committed that we stand a chance of realising these local government strategic
priorities.
Municipal support is already there through Project Consolidate and other
several initiatives. It is also my understanding that after this conference,
even if I wanted to, I will not be able to point a finger at my
Director-General, your City Manager, and your Head of Department (HOD) for
non-delivery.
One of the critical things we need to do in the next five years is to build
and strengthen the capacity of women mayors and councillors. This objective is
also consistent with building a democratic, non-racial and non-sexist South
Africa. We should do so by putting in place targeted support programmes for our
women mayors and councillors, and not rejoice at their failures, as some men
would do.
To women mayors and councillors, I challenge you to demonstrate to these
men, who some of them have sadly yet to understand why we embarked on a 50/50
Campaign. One of the issues I am firmly putting on the table is violence
against women and children that continues to be an unfortunate characteristic
of our society. The on-going programmes of support must also be used to
complement our 365 Days of Activism against this scourge.
I hope that through women mayors and councillors, programmes to end violence
against women and children will infiltrate Local Government business, and
indeed stretch their wings to ward committees. Why ward committee level? I
maintain that it is only when this issue is spoken about at this level, in a
language that these rural women understand, as opposed to sitting in our
boardrooms and making Power Point presentation in our fancy laptops that we
will put an end to this barbaric behaviour.
Ladies and gentlemen I thank you all for coming.
May you have prosperity in all your local government endeavours!!
Issued by: Department of Provincial and Local Government
25 May 2006
Source: Department of Provincial and Local Government (http://www.dplg.gov.za)
