MUNIMEC takes sweeping resolutions to improve local government in KZN
The two day session of MuniMec where the KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) MEC for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Nomusa Dube-Ncube, regularly engages Mayors and key stakeholders from the province’s municipalities has taken a number of far reaching resolutions to streamline the way local government works in KZN.
The MuniMec resolutions include:
- Call on KZN’s municipal Chief Financial Officer (CFOs) to comply with the requirement to submit proof their formal qualifications by September 2015 or vacate their positions.
- Call on KZN’s district mayors to quantify their requirements for infrastructure funding but, at the same time, to speed up their spending of the unspent conditional grants or risk surrendering these precious resources to the National Treasury.
- Concern about the latest Municipal Property Rates Act (MPRA) amendments which exempt certain categories of property owners from municipal rates, affecting roads, railways, dams, airport runways or harbours, and the effects of these amendments on the revenue collection and financial viability of municipalities.
- Call on KZN municipalities to move beyond discussions towards implementation of the ‘Back to basics’ programme and particularly its focus on consistently high performance of and reporting by both municipal officials and office bearers.
- Call on the KZN municipalities to improve their overall audit outcomes and specifically implement the audit issues raised by the Auditor-General at council level.
- Praise for the number of job opportunities created by municipalities, particularly as part of the Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP), Community Work Programme (CWP) and Food for Waste programmes, and an appeal to local government to redouble its efforts to meet the job creation targets set for KZN by the Presidency.
The KZN municipalities have also been urged by the national Deputy Minister of Communications Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams who addressed the MuniMec session to communicate their policy decisions more effectively to the public to counter the negative perceptions of local government that exist in the mass media.
“There is nothing stopping municipalities from holding a press briefing after every council sitting to appraise communities of the pertinent issues relating to municipal administration and service delivery,” said Ndabeni-Abrahams who has also urged municipalities to beef up their communications units and provide them with adequate budgets to perform their functions.
Contact:
Lennox Mabaso
Cell: 082 884 2403
Province
