Minister Sicelo Shiceka has outlined the areas which will inform the performance agreement with mayors in all municipalities. The minister shared this information with local government leadership at the National Members Assembly of the South African Local Government Association (SALGA) which is currently underway in Kimberley, in the Northern Cape.
In his address to over 1000 delegates comprising of councillors; mayors and senior municipal officials, Minister Shiceka revealed that on 29 April he had signed his performance contract with the President of the republic committing him to specific targets he must achieve by the end of term for the current administration in 2014.
The same ministerial performance agreement will have enormous bearing on the performance agreement that all mayors will in turn sign with the minister.
The minister told delegates that in his performance agreement, he has agreed with the President to deliver on the following critical areas:
- The delivery of basic services which include water, sanitation, electricity and waste management.
- Creation of 4,5 million job opportunities by 2014 through the community works programme.
- Transformation of administrative and financial systems of local government, which includes supply chain management.
- The filling of six critical senior municipal posts, namely municipal manager, chief financial officer, town clerk, town engineer, human resources manager and the communications manager as the basic minimum for every municipality.
- That all municipalities in the country achieve clean audits by 2014.
- Building municipal capacity to enable municipalities to collect 90 percent of their revenues.
The latest development comes after a concerted effort by Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA) to improve service delivery in local government by introducing a Local Government Turn Around Strategy to garner support for municipalities from private companies, civil society, state owned enterprises and the other two spheres of government.
Minister also reiterated that local government has to do things differently and that partnership must be forged with all sectors of the society to encourage them to rally behind municipalities.
Source: Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs
(http://www.cogta.gov.za/)
