North West Premier, Bushy Maape insists part of celebrating heritage must include prioritising the delivery of services to communities by municipalities.
Premier Kaobitsa Maape was addressing the Provincial Heritage Day celebrations held at Morokweng village in the Kagisano Molopo Local Municipality in North West.
Premier Maape said celebrating Heritage Day will be meaningless if communities are still unable to access basic services
“People in this area are still without basic services such as water, decent shelter and they have little or nothing to eat. Municipalities must at all material times prioritise and ensure the delivery of services and change the face of local government. We are going to lay a tangible administrative foundation for the incoming councils because municipalities are constitutionally mandated to service the people and their functioning remains the priority of government” remarked Premier Maape.
This year’s festivities are held under the theme: “The year of Charlotte Maxeke: Celebrating South Africa’s Intangible Cultural heritage”.
Charlotte Maxeke was a remarkable woman with shrewd leadership qualities. She is the first South African Black female to obtain a BSc degree. This was at Wilberforce University in Ohio in 1903. Maxeke was also a student of W.E.B. Du Bois, a sociologist, civil rights activist and Pan Africanist but critically he was an important figure in advocating for the socio-economic rights of Africans in the diaspora.
Premier Maape maintains, the scourge of domestic violence currently sweeping through the country must be nipped in the bud.
“We are celebrating Maxeke while the country is grappling with the scourge of Gender-Based-Violence. The patriarchal nature of our society which continues to expose women into worse forms of abuse and exploitation impresses upon us to create socio-economic opportunities for women to be self-sufficient” said Premier Maape.
He urged the people of North West to go out in numbers and get vaccinated so the country can reach population immunity. This weekend has been set aside to amplify the “Vooma Vaccination Campaign".
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