The Provincial Week programme of the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) kicks off today.
The main focus of the week-long programme which ends on Friday, 12 September, will be to visit areas that have been experiencing service delivery protests. Statistics from the South African Police Service, civil society organisations, such as, Municipality IQ and academic institutions say there were from about 3 000 service delivery protests over the past four years to between 410 and 720 service delivery protests from 2009 to 2012.
Provincial Week is a key mechanism for the NCOP to achieve its mandate of representing the provinces in the national sphere of government. The theme of this week’s programme is: ‘Together making service delivery work for our people’.
Provincial week is in line with the drive to build an activist Parliament which plays a role in giving expression to the needs and challenges of communities. It provides Members of the NCOP with the opportunity to conduct joint oversight visits to specific areas and projects. The visits also involve convening public hearings and meetings to interact directly with communities and get first-hand information on issues concerning them. All these activities enable Members to interact with and report back on issues arising in the provinces from which they come.
NCOP Provincial Week Programme 8 - 12 September
Areas to be visited during this provincial week include:
Eastern Cape: OR Tambo District Municipality, Amathole District Municipality, Nelson Mandela Metro Municipality
- Free State: Bloemfontein, Clarens, Dihlabeng Local Municipality
- Gauteng: Vereeniging, Evaton
- KwaZulu Natal: Durban
- Limpopo: Vhembe District, Mopani District
- Mpumalanga: Mbombela Local Municipality
- Northern Cape: Kuruman, De Aar
- North West: Tswaing Local Municipality, Ditsobotla Local Municipality
Western Cape: Citrusdal, Vredendal, Elands Bay, Velddrif, Saldanha Bay, Moorreesburg, Malmesbury
