Programme Director,
Members of the academia present here,
SALGA delegation,
Provincial government officials,
Local government officials,
LGSETA Administrator,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Distinguished guests.
Good day.
It is my great honour and pleasure to be part of this occasion and grace this Local Government Sector Education & Training Authority (LGSETA) Stakeholder roadshow here at St Marco Hall. We are delighted that this strategic interaction will enable our rural communities to catch up with the developed world, especially on the critical issue of modern technology, which, as we all are aware, is the driving force of today’s economies.
Skills development plays an important role in the growth of every country’s economy, service delivery and technology improvement. It is through skill development that we can build confidence and dignity in people and it then becomes a must do for every sphere of government to ensure that its people are well skilled and developed to meet the modern day challenges.
Obviously, the foundation for an ideal society with adequately skilled men and women, capable of bringing about all-round development, is rooted in the sound education and training system. As we battle to undo the damage of years of apartheid education and training systems, we need to at the same time gear our training system towards the future and this launch today is a profound step in the direction of ensuring that our men and women have top skills in the land.
Education is the wealth of the 21st century. It is far more precious than any mineral one can ever find. If our people have the skills, the right attitude coupled with discipline, they can conquer the world anywhere.
Invest in education and training and human capital, is accepted everywhere as a critical determinant of whether a country succeeds or fail in its endeavour to bring a better life for all its citizens. It has been proven time and again that lack of skills and poor education are amongst major contributing factors to the scourge of poverty and underdevelopment.
Our Constitution recognises that the state, broadly defined has to champion the causes of the poor and the disadvantaged. Boasting top skills, we can intervene to correct the historical injustices by effecting redress. Our Constitution is crafted with an inherent understanding that to build a truly non-racial society, the country has to tackle the legacy of apartheid directly. Doing that will require men and women whose quality of education and training is unparalleled.
The National Development Plan (NDP) was released to South African almost a year ago. The values embedded in the Plan stem from the values espoused at the launch of the ANC itself over a hundred years ago. These values are about unity, about non-racialism and most importantly about the just apportionment of economic wealth in South Africa.
These values are carried forth in the Freedom Charter, in the ANC Constitutional principles in the late 1980s and into our Constitution after democracy. We need capacity to implement the NDP; we need skills to respond to society’s needs.
We need the most competent and a well-oiled municipality to help reduce poverty and deliver services. We find this initiative today worthy as it will assist in equipping our officials with credible and relevant skills that will see them running with government projects to the satisfaction of our people in poor communities.
It will be imperative and critical for our municipalities to work hand in hand with the Local Government Sector Education and Training Authority to arrest skills constraints in this important sphere of our government.
Partnerships should be forged to ensure that training and development is delivered to the employees to reduce the acute shortages of skills which affect the important work of delivering services. This is a very important sphere which interacts very closely with our people and with the most relevant skills it can deliver basic services like water and sanitation, roads, electricity, refuse removal, housing and other essential services.
The challenges around the spending of the Municipal Infrastructure Grant by our municipalities points to the lack of skills in planning, project management and other related competencies.
The fact that our municipalities are failing to spend money allocated to significantly contribute in reducing infrastructure backlogs in our municipalities raises serious questions about capacity and competence. It says to us we must partner and staff our municipalities with officials who have the requisite skills and competencies to execute their jobs as they are expected to do.
It certainly should not take an eternity to get a municipality to fix a bust water pipe because it will simply mean municipalities do not have the people doing their jobs. Wasteful and fruitless expenditure that the Auditor General cite as prevalent in the country’ s municipalities can be a thing of the past if we invest in the best training in the areas local government finance.
If wasteful expenditure doubled to almost a billion in the financial year 2011/12, the performance of municipalities remain almost non-existence. And this is the sphere tasked with service delivery.
We must ask ourselves: what does this bleak picture say to millions of people who have been promise clean, running water, decent ablution facilities, roads, sanitations and other services?
Our people will conclude safely that the wasteful manner in which those in government handle taxpayers’ money shows that funds are not used for what they are meant for. They will further conclude that there is money, but it is wasted by people who do not a fibre of clue on how to use it or simply lack the skill to use it.
We need as in yesterday a local government that prides itself with qualified, competent, committed and most importantly incorruptible leaders and civil servants. We must jerk up our acts as a collective and deliver on the mandate to improve the lives of people where it matters the most. Our people have been waiting and might not be patient with us anymore. The defence that there is no money for development will start to ring hollow in the face of hard facts. Let us arm ourselves accordingly because the challenges already.
The important roles played by traditional leaders in our province, particularly in our rural communities, remain unchanging and paramount in our developmental state. Traditional leaders continue to make a very important contribution towards the process of deepening democracy in our province.
It is in that light that we should that we should ensure that our leaders have the necessary training and skills to practically respond to the challenges on the ground. Our challenges as a province are enormous and therefore we cannot spare any effort to address poverty and all its negative consequences, especially for the poorest of the poor in rural areas.
Many developmental challenges today require the wisdom and contribution of traditional leaders in our system of governance, as the interface of communication and the improved delivery of services to the rural poor.
Obviously, one of the compelling reasons why our people go to the polls every five years is because they desire a better life. The contract we have entered with the people makes provision for government to improve services and for communities to know the channels which they need to follow in order to access these services.
As public servants, we are at the heart of government’s endeavours to bring these basic services to our people. We there need multi-skilled to help government deliver faster and efficiently.
A better tomorrow requires sacrifice and action from all of us, even in democracy. Right at the heart of all these challenges that confront us is our collective responsibility to work tirelessly for the realisation of the values articulated in our constitution. The National Development Plan is a vision for a better tomorrow.
That better tomorrow has to be built and we need skills to do that as it will not build itself. Let us all give the plan life, meaning and substance through continued action in every facet of our society.
Laying brick by brick will enable us to reach our shared vision for capable state which will transform the lives of our people.
I thank you!
