The Mpumalanga Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs has held a one day Provincial Local Government Summit in Whiteriver, attended by all Executive Mayors, Municipal Managers, Members of Mayoral Committee, and senior officials from the different spheres of government.
The aim of the summit was to take stock of what local government has achieved, what have been the shortcomings and the reasons for these, since the current administration came into office in 2006, identify burning issues that have not been addressed and to develop an action plan of quick wins for the next five months before the current term of local government ends.
MEC Madala Masuku said it was important to call this summit at this time, as it allows the province and municipalities to do an assessment of the work they have done over the past five years. “When the current local government administration came into office in 2006, they did so base on the commitments made in the manifesto. This summit has enabled us to evaluate how far we have come on the commitments made.
The summit has also enabled us to prepare issues that have not been addressed by the current local government and will be handed over to the administration that will come in after the elections for them to pursue” said Masuku. He further appealed to the Mayors and Councillors to use their remaining term of office to work harder to be able to leave a legacy.
He further added that incidents of unrests that were experienced by the province indicated that there were shortcomings on the performance of some municipalities.” We cannot over emphasise the importance of giving regular feedback to the communities so that they are aware of progress being made on the implementation of projects and the challenges that are encountered by municipalities. We must continue to familiarise our communities on what municipalities are doing” said Masuku.
After the unrests experienced by the province, all municipalities engaged communities and agreed on projects that must be prioritised and be addressed within the next five months, using their available resources.
These projects include the completion of all MIG projects, provision of water through boreholes and water tankers, addressing sanitation backlogs, electrification of some communities, data cleansing to correct household accounts, filling of critical vacant funded posts, gravelling of roads, fixing of roads damaged by potholes, capacity building of municipal officials and finalising supplementary valuation rolls.
Municipalities will be expected to immediately begin implementing the quick wins. MEC Masuku will continuously monitor the implementation of the delivery of the projects that have been identified by municipalities over the next five months.
Enquiries:
Simphiwe Kunene
Cell: 082 413 3931
