S Ndebele: SALGA National Members Assembly

25 June 2006

Programe Director,
The President of the Republic of South Africa, honourable Dr Thabo Mbeki,
The honourable Mayor of Ethekwini Municipality, Cllr Obed Mlaba,
The Chairperson of SALGA, Cllr Amos Masondo,
The honourable Minister of Provincial and Local Government Affairs, Mr FS
Mufamadi,
The honourable MEC for Local Government, Housing and Traditional Affairs in
KwaZulu-Natal, Mr Mike Mabuyakhulu,
Honourable MECs present,
Honourable members of parliament present,
Honourable mayors and councillors present,
Our esteemed amakhosi present,
The CEO of SALGA, Dr Makhosi Khoza,
SALGA NEC members present,
Local government practitioners present,
Distinguished guests,
Ladies and gentlemen,
All protocol observed:

I am deeply honoured to be part of the proceedings of this South African
Local Government Association (SALGA) Members Assembly convened at a very
crucial period in our country, the second era of local government.

Unfortunately we host this assembly at a difficult period for local
government in our province where in a space of two weeks we have witnessed the
killing of three important role players in local government. Our government
once again sends its heartfelt condolences to the families of the late Umtshezi
Deputy Mayor, Ms Dolly Dladla and Umtshezi Councillor, Mr Music Mchunu as well
as to the family of Ulundi Municipal Manager, Mr Joseph Masango. We also wish
Ms Lungile Mhlongo, a victim of the Umtshezi incident a speedy recovery. We
have every faith that our law enforcement agencies will swiftly apprehend the
culprits and ensure that they face the full might of the law. As the people of
KwaZulu-Natal we are committed to the construction of a peaceful, democratic
and prosperous society. We have already assigned colleagues Mike Mabuyakhulu,
MEC for Local Government, Housing and Traditional Affairs as well as MEC for
Safety and Community Liaison, Mr Bheki Cele to immediately meet with security
agencies and enlist the assistance of the National Police Commissioner, Mr
Jackie Selebi, in coming up with a strategy to apprehend those that are
responsible for these heinous deeds. Murderers have no place in our
society.

Programme Director;

Conferences such as this offer an organisation an opportunity to stop, not
only to reflect on the road that was travelled up to that specific point but to
look at the road ahead and if need be to revisit adopted strategies such that
they respond adequately to both current and anticipated challenges. Today is
one of those days where we have to take stock of the progress that we have made
assess our strengths and weaknesses in making local government work better for
our people.

One of the world’s respected statesmen, this time our own President Thabo
Mbeki, in one of his State of the Nation addresses once said “We are in a
continuing process of transition. It is a journey where each point of arrival
turns out to be a stepping stone rather than a destination. This process of
transition will have its watershed moments which will give rise to new
challenges.”

Ladies and gentlemen, as our honourable President observed we are in a new
moment. The main feature which defines the moment we are in is the fact that we
are at the beginning of our second phase of our system of local government, a
phase focused on stabilising this system of governance which is at the coalface
of service delivery for our people.

My colleague, the MEC for Local Government, Housing and Traditional Affairs,
Mike Mabuyakhulu, is even bolder and refers to this as a “season of harvest.”
We refer to this as a season of harvest because we believe that this the time
in which our local government must work better to change the lives of our
people and they must be changed in a hurry. When a municipality works better
for our people it becomes a catalyst to economic growth, development and
sustainable service delivery. When a municipality works better it gives
practical meaning to the age of hope among our people.

Programme Director, in the recent local government elections our people
turned out in numbers to vote for their local government representatives. This
demonstrated the willingness on the part of our citizens to play a leading role
in the affairs of their municipalities.

This should indeed serve as a motivating factor for all our cadres in local
government to work even harder knowing that they have the mandate of the people
they serve.

The first phase of local government proved to be the most challenging one.
Although key progress has been recorded in many areas particularly in the areas
of basic service delivery and infrastructure development, our municipalities
still faced serious disparities in institutional capacity, service delivery and
governance, poor community involvement and skewed scorecard in satisfying the
needs of the people. Notwithstanding the challenges we have, however, gained
significant experience during this period.

With the benefit of hindsight and our practical experiences we have thus
resolved that this new term of local government must result in a more
sustainable system characterised by reliable service delivery and improvement
in the performance of our municipalities. All of us, national, provincial and
local government have agreed that the period between 2006 and 2011 must yield
effective functioning municipalities, free of corruption with prudent financial
management. Municipalities in this second term must pay serious attention to
the maintenance of services while enabling more people to access basic services
such as water, electricity and roads. This is the period where each
municipality must strive to have a practical and implementable Local Economic
Development (LED) plan, be rooted in community participation and accountable to
the people they serve as part of deepening democracy.

All our strategic priorities must be informed by a desire to achieve these
benchmarks. These benchmarks, ladies and gentlemen, must inform SALGA’s own
role in ensuring the sustainability of our system of local government. These
benchmarks also compliment the role that SALGA has defined for itself which is
to represent, promote and protect the interest of local government and
transform local government to enable it to fulfil its developmental role.

SALGA is an important partner in our system of local government, a partner
who without her collaboration our success cannot be assured. As a critical
player in the field of local government we expect SALGA to be an active
participant that is on the cutting edge and leading in all matters affecting
our municipalities in particular and the system of local government in
general.

One of the prerequisites for sustainable development in any environment is
the co-ordination of the efforts of all the role players.

In our ongoing campaign to build a South Africa characterised by equality,
justice, peace and prosperity, it is required of all the spheres of government
to work in sync in order to realise this objective. To this end, a sustainable
and cordial working relationship between provincial and local government is
critical. It is in pursuit of this co-ordination that, in 2005, our province
launched the Premier’s Co-ordinating Forum (PCF) comprised of all the district
mayors, the Mayor of the Ethekwini Municipality, the Chairperson of the
KwaZulu-Natal Local Government Association (KwaNaloga), the members of the
KwaZulu-Natal Executive Council (ExCo) and the Premier of KwaZulu-Natal.

These fora serve as a hub of information and a point of convergence that
ultimately enable government to ensure that there is integrated focus to
service delivery, economic development and various campaigns to fight poverty.
Programme Director, the importance of sustainable intergovernmental relations
cannot be overemphasised.

History has placed a heavy but exciting burden on our shoulders, a task to
reconstruct and develop our country and to transform South Africa into a
country worthy of her people. In this regard the ultimate yardstick with which
to measure the success or failure of our system of local government is how well
and how rapidly we transform the lives of our people through the sustainable
provision of basic services and the unleashing of our economic development
potential.

Earlier on we said local government must be rooted in community
participation and that it should be accountable to the people it serves. It is
an indisputable fact that government in general has lagged behind in
communicating its programmes and projects to the people. One of the major
lessons learnt through such fora as Project Consolidate and the Municipal
Izimbizo was that our communication efforts at local government need to be
enhanced in order to effectively keep our communities abreast of opportunities
and programmes implemented through our municipalities. Municipalities are the
first level of contact between people and government. It is at this critical
level of government where the concept of “the people shall govern” must be
given expression. This implies that our ward committees must be fully
functional, our community development workers must be supported and that
elected representatives should have regular interactions with the people they
serve no matter whether they have been able to meet the people’s expectations
or not.

This conference has a very critical task ahead. Among the issues that this
conference will have to look into are:
* Enhancing strategies to capacitate municipalities to deliver faster on their
mandate.

* To ensure co-ordinated and integrated planning among all role players in
this sphere of government.

* To position local government as a catalyst for economic growth.

* Strengthen communication system at local government level to maximise
public participation.

* Strengthen good governance practices and devise strategies to obliterate
corruption at local government.

Ladies and gentlemen, the challenges that we face in our fledgling system of
local government are massive but conditions have never been this favourable for
the realisation of our goal of a prosperous, peaceful and democratic South
Africa. We must count ourselves among the most blessed local government
practitioners to be serving our people at this important epoch of our
democracy.

As seasoned Nigerian author Ben Okri once said; “You must not cease from
mental fight nor should you allow your sword to sleep in your hand.”

Let us all therefore use the next two days of this Assembly to engage each
other in mental fight and sharpen our swords in order to transform and improve
our system of local government so that it can work better for the good of all
of our people.

I thank you!

Issued by: Office of the Premier, KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Government
25 June 2006