Address by Hon Premier DD Mabuza at the Mpumalanga
SALGA Provincial Members Assembly
Loskop Dam
21 May 2009
Programme Director, Cllr Khosi Mkhonto
The Chairperson of SALGA in the Province, Cllr S Mashilo
Members of the Executive Council
Mayors and Councillors
The Chief Executive Officer of SALGA, Mr X. George
The Provincial Executive Officer of SALGA in Mpumalanga
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen
The vision of creating a better life for all our people, particularly the
poor, by the ANC-led government is on course. The overwhelming support that they
gave the ANC on 22 April says it all. We have been awarded another opportunity
to continue translating their wishes, as expressed in the Freedom Charter, into
reality.
Together with the people, we have identified five key priorities on which we, as
government, would be expected to deliver tangible results over the next
five-years. As many of you would know, these are:
Creation of decent work and sustainable livelihoods
Education
Health
Rural development, food security and land reform, and
The fight against crime and corruption
Together, we have agreed that, for these goals to be achieved, government,
business, labour and civil society have to go into the mode of ‘Business
Unusual’. There is no room for complacency. We need to infuse a strong sense of
urgency and commitment to ensure that we address the development and service
delivery needs of our communities.
One could safely assume that the convening of this important gathering by the
practitioners of service delivery is not accidental but a clear understanding of
the enormous tasks given to the ruling party by the electorate to execute
without apology.
On behalf of the Provincial Government, I wish to commend SALGA for allowing the
issues of service delivery to occupy centre stage in your day to day activities.
Having said that, allow me therefore, to highlight few issues which I believe
have bearing on the work of SALGA as captured in the Five Year Local Government
Strategic Agenda. As we enter the home-stretch towards the 2011 Local Government
Elections, it is important that we enhance alignment between the 2009 ANC
manifesto with the current Five Year Local Government Strategic Agenda.
As part of the five year strategic agenda of local government, the delivery of
basic services such as electricity, water, sanitation, refuse and waste removal
remains essential in improving the quality of life and the sustainable
development of our communities. Critically, the capacity of our municipality to
discharge their constitutional obligations remains serious call for concern.
Most of our municipalities continue to score very low in terms of performance.
Many of the protests that showed their ugly faces in some of the municipalities
bear testimony to that effect.
Our recruitment policies and finance management skills would require some
attention. It is therefore incumbent on SALGA to assist in this regard. The
training programmes that municipalities have initiated have to be intensified.
As the Provincial Government, we are more than willing and ready to walk with
you in your endeavours.
As the Provincial Government, we will continue to work collaboratively with
SALGA in enhancing hands-on support to municipalities to strengthen their
capacities to meet service delivery targets in line with the Five Year Local
Government Strategic Agenda. Collectively, we have to ensure that such services
are fast-tracked because, in the main, they constitute challenges that are
really a thorn in the flesh of our people.
Another area of concern is the issue of integrated planning. We all agree that
most of Integrated Development Plans (IDP) of municipalities still leave much to
be desired in terms of the quality of content and overall credibility as
developmental tools.
As a consequence, the poor quality of planning and fragmented implementation of
government programmes across the three spheres of government become major
constraints to the achievement of developmental and service delivery outcomes
that we envisage.
As we are all aware, this is not a new problem. We have, on numerous occasions,
discussed and debated this issue extensively in many different fora and taken
brilliant decisions to circumvent whatever shortcomings that we have identified
during our deliberations.
However, coming to the implementation of those decisions, nothing much has
happened to date. We still continue to contest for the same space to implement
our different projects. We continue to basically utilise our scarce resources
inefficiently and ineffectively.
Despite these challenges, one would maintain that the IDP framework remains an
appropriate planning tool for the effective delivery of services. It is a
framework that could assist us to maximise the utilisation of our resources and
accelerate the delivery of quality services.
What is then crucial is that all spheres of government must participate in
processes of developing IDPs of the individual municipalities. This is one area
that I am planning to pay a special attention to during my term of office. I
believe that there is room to make IDPs our common point of convergence as
different spheres of government.
In this regard, we need meaningful engagement and participation by all key
stakeholders and implementing agencies to ensure co-ordinated implementation of
programmes within a common and spatially-defined integrated development plan.
One anticipates that the newly established National Planning Commission would
support the view of making IDPs a common frame of reference for integrated
planning. Alongside this, the development of a single planning cycle across the
entire government would alleviate challenges emanating from the management of
different planning cycles between different spheres of government.
As a matter of priority, we have to give teeth to the planning process. Even if
we have to amend the legislation, let it be.
Programme Director, an important measure of democratic governance is the ability
to strengthen systems of public participation, transparency, integrity and
accountability for service delivery outcomes. We need to enhance public
participation and consultation to foster communities’ ownership of their own
development and empowerment
It is apparent that certain institutions that we have established for the
purpose of consultation and coordination of government programmes continue to be
lame ducks. Among others, one would refer to ward committees, community
development workers and community policing forums. These institutions are not
operating as expected.
Therefore, we have to find better ways of making them effective because they are
important and necessary institutions to advance the ideals of democratic
governance and accountability.
Programme Director, our stated commitment to working together with stakeholders
and partners ‘to do more’ should also find concrete expression in our approach
to enhancing the Province’s relationship with the outside world. Despite limited
progress on the international relations front, you would agree with me that
international relations continue to be a challenge, especially at municipal
level.
Our overall assessment is that our capacity to derive more value from
international partnerships has been negligible and non-impactful. Part of the
problem has been our inability to monitor and evaluate the contribution of
international engagements to development and service delivery in the Province.
If we are to realize the positive impact of our international partnership, it is
critical that a shared and common international relations engagement agenda is
pursued to avoid fragmentation and purposeless interaction with the outside
world. The coordination of municipal international relations programme should be
prioritised to ensure that municipalities align their international programmes
in a manner that contributes to existing provincial twinning partnerships.
I believe that SALGA will play an important leadership role in our efforts to
streamline international relations so that they are strategically targeted to
add value to the achievement of our provincial priorities.
As we continue to strengthen our democratic system of local governance, strong
partnerships between government and traditional leadership institutions are
essential to advance development and the quality of service delivery in the
Province. As local government, we should continue to provide the necessary
support to the Local Houses of Traditional Leaders and traditional councils to
ensure that they are able to function effectively.
As I conclude, I would say that for municipalities to succeed in their pursuit
of effective delivery of quality services, it would be imperative that we
strengthen the issue of intergovernmental relations. There will be a need for us
to jointly sharpen the institutions established for engagement and also improve
the content of our discussions. Undoubtedly, we have to get value for time spent
in those meetings.
Let me take this opportunity to wish a successful and fruitful meeting. 2011 is
around the corner. Let us work harder and fast-track service delivery. The hope
of our people is in our hands.
I thank you.
Issued by: Office of the Premier
