The North West Department of Local Government has enlisted the service of the Independent Development Trust (IDT) for a period of two years, to assist municipalities to amongst others:
- Implement infrastructure projects on time, within quality, scope and budget
- Support identified municipalities in infrastructure initiation, development, project planning and management
- Support identified municipalities in social facilitation
- Capacitate programme management unit and management of the affairs of the Unit
- Perform any additional Municipal Turn-Around Strategy coordination role related to infrastructure projects
- Support identified municipalities to access bridging finance.
The IDT team will be made up of programme managers, programme implementation managers, project accountants and project administrators. This team will also be supported by Cuban Technical Specialists who are mostly professional civil engineers.
Municipalities which have been identified to benefit from this arrangement are: Molopo, Kagisano, Tswaing, Mafikeng, Ratlou, Tlokwe, Madibeng, Moses Kotane, Moretele, Kgetlengrivier, Maquassi hills, Ventersdorp Local Municipalities. Some of the challenges identified as contributing to municipalities’ failure to spend their MIG allocations include:
- lack of capacity to implement projects (technical, financial, institutional and planning)
- inappropriate management of the supply chain management process
- failure to append allocations
- lack of buy-in from municipal councils
- threat of project stopped or changed by new municipal councils
- lack of forward planning
The total Municipal Infrastructure Grant (MIG) allocation for the province for 2010/11 financial year was R989 881 000.00 for 2010/11 and municipalities have only managed to spend 21 percent of this allocation.
Enquiries:
Ditshaba Makhate
Cell: 082 359 6979
