Municipal communicators given marching orders
North West municipal communicators have been urged to up their communication game and bridge the communication gap that currently exist, which in many instances result in unnecessary service delivery protest action by community members. This message was put across to communicators during the two-day Local Government Communicators Forum held at Rustenburg recently, hosted by North West Department of Local Government & Human Settlements.
In his welcome address, the acting Head of Department, Moss Kgantsi told the communicators that they are the engine behind government’s service delivery programmes. “The day that communication dies, is the day government will stop to exist. That will be a sad day for us all. Government cannot continue with its everyday business of delivering services to the people without the work being communicated to the intended beneficiaries. An uninformed community is a very dangerous community,“ Kgantsi said.
Kgantsi went on to encourage them not to use the Forum as a talk show but as a mechanism towards discussing and finding solutions to challenges that local government communicators are faced with in their various work stations, as well as to share best practices and lesson learnt. “We must be able to draw on our experiences of the past 20 years in a democratic government and 14 years since the inception a democratic local government,” he concluded.
During the programme, Acting Provincial Head of Communications Bonolo Mohlakoana encouraged the communicators to ensure that their communication strategies embraces important government programmes such as Bua le Puso and Setsokotsane, which were recently launched by the North West Premier Supra Mahumapelo as service delivery tools. “We must communicate in line with these important programmes as they are service delivery driven and they are being implemented at the municipal level where service delivery should take place. We must never seize to communicate about developments, no matter how big or small, so that we inform and educate our people. Let us make noise on print and electronic media as well as social media, and do allow the media to dictate terms for us,” she uttered.
Speaking on social media, a social media specialist Andrew Khupare, said the platform can’t continue to be ignored as all young people whom we ought to communicate with are available on different social networks especially facebook which has more users. “Social media is part of lives and it is here to stay. It is an important platform as it targets the eyes, ears, mind and heart. There are no deadlines with social media usage and the response is immediate and you get to know the opinion of the recipients. All that is needed is to choose the correct social media for your targeted audience," said Khupare.
Several resolutions have been adopted at the Forum and are to be implemented by communicators in different municipalities. In the next forum which is expected to be hosted in the next quarter at Dr Kenneth Kaunda District will focus on the achievements and challenges encountered during the implementation face.
Enquiries:
Ben Bole, Spokesperson
Cell: 071 566 1399
E-mail: msbole@nwpg.gov.za
