Date: 14/08/2003
Source: North West Provincial Government
Title: Molefe: North West summit on integrated development planning
SPEECH BY THE NORTH WEST PREMIER, DR POPO SIMON MOLEFE, ON THE OCCASION OF THE PROVINCIAL SUMMIT ON INTEGRATED DEVELOPMENT PLANNING, Mmabatho Convention Centre, 14 August 2003
Programme Director,
MECs,
Executive Mayors,
Mayors and Councillors,
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen:
During my State of the Province Address earlier this year, I told the Provincial Legislature that as a province, we took pride in the fact that all our municipalities have finalised their integrated development plans (IDPs).
I also made the point that we faced a challenge of assessing the compliance of these IDPs with the principles of participatory democracy, integration with national and provincial programmes and input from traditional leaders.
During the same address, I made a commitment to the Legislature and the people of the North West, that the provincial government will convene a summit on IDPs to deal with some of the challenges within our IDP process.
This summit is a culmination of processes unleashed by the undertaking we made during the State of the Province Address. It is in many respects a pledge redeemed, a promised fulfilled and indeed a commitment delivered upon.
In this regard, I wish to take this opportunity to thank MEC Africa and his team at the Department of Developmental Local Government and Housing for putting together this important provincial summit.
Our gathering here today signifies that we have gone a long way in transforming our system of local government. We have made bold strides in positioning our system of local government as effective instrument for lifting, from the shoulders of our people, the intolerable burden of poverty and underdevelopment.
We are encouraged by the progress made in eroding the apartheid legacy characterised by "cities of contrasts", cities where islands of opulence, abundance and greed we surrounded by a sea of poverty, underdevelopment and hopelessness.
Almost ten years into our democracy, we approach the future with confidence that we have embarked on an irreversible journey to a system of local government that is responsive to the needs of all our people.
However, we still face a collective challenge of ensuring that our system of local government continues to give meaning to our vision of a people-driven people-centred government. Our system of local government must ensure that the people do indeed govern.
Critical to the achievement of this strategic objective is the need to continue with efforts aimed at strengthening the local sphere of government.
Over time we must engender an understanding that strong local government is the key to the promotion of sustainable service delivery.
We must spread the message that local government is strategically positioned to ensure that government policies have maximum impact on the lives of our people.
IDPs play a cardinal role in ensuring that our system of local government gives practical meaning to the principles we hold so dearly. I refer here to the principles of strong, people-driven, people-centred, developmental local government that contributes towards sustainable services delivery.
Our gathering here today, seeks to reaffirm the centrality of IDPs in the ongoing pursuit of local economic development and accelerated service delivery.
We are here today to reaffirm the role of IDPs as key planning instruments for municipalities. In other words, we are here to ensure that IDPs in our province live up to their sacred mission of pushing back the frontiers of poverty and broadening access to a better life.
Gathered here today are men and women of our province who are at the coalface of the delivery of services. None but they understand better the daily hardships of our people.
It is these men and women who are entrusted with pursuing the strategic objective of ensuring that local government becomes the front desk in our system of governance, the point at which we achieve customer service.
I have no doubt, therefore, that this summit is endowed with a wealth of experience and talent on local government issues. I urge all of you to apply your minds and contribute to the success of this important summit.
This summit gives us an opportunity to broaden participation in the IDP process. This is a critical element in our effort to ensure that ours remains a truly people-driven and people-centred system of local government.
This summit also gives us an opportunity to find ways of fostering effective implementation and understanding of IDPs by municipalities and various government departments.
Programme Director, I note with appreciation the fact that this summit is taking place after an assessment of the IDPs of municipalities was done.
I am informed that during this process, gaps within the IDP process were identified and recommendations made to individual municipalities.
This is a significant development as it gives this summit an opportunity to address itself to specific challenges with a view to developing comprehensive, targeted and lasting solutions.
Some of the challenges identified include the need to strengthen coordination and alignment of policies, developmental priorities, programmes and budgets among municipalities and across spheres of government.
We await the resolutions of this summit to provide guidance on this and many other challenges facing the IDP process.
Out of this summit must emerge a renewed commitment from all of us to promote mass participation in our IDP process. I am encouraged that the organisers of this summit have set for themselves an objective of developing guidelines for the involvement of various sectors in the IDP process.
These guidelines will go a long way in ensuring that our IDPs enjoy popular support among our people, which is critical for their implementation.
As we define the role that various stakeholders must play in the IDP process, we must continue to find creative ways of ensuring that input from our traditional leaders is incorporated in the IDPs.
We must use the involvement of traditional leaders in the IDP process as a tool to strengthen relations between this important institution of our people and local government.
This we must do because we are convinced that traditional leaders have a critical role to play in promoting sustainable development particularly in rural areas.
This summit must succeed in its objective of seeking consensus on a practical plan to align provincial planning and budgeting to the needs of municipalities. This is important if we are to eliminate duplication and wastage in service delivery.
We expect this summit to make input that will contribute towards the adoption a project register and an IDP nerve centre. This will assist the process of facilitating proper integration among the various spheres of government.
We are also awaiting the outcome of deliberations from this summit around the critical area of building capacity for the implementation of IDPs.
Without an effective capacity building programme, we face the serious risk of failing in our strategic goal of building developmental local government.
We must use the recently launched Municipal Leadership Academy to foster greater understanding of the IDP process and its implementation among all stakeholders.
Programme Director, Ladies and Gentlemen, it is crucial that this summit achieves all its objectives so that it could assists the process of consolidating government-wide planning for sustainable development through IDPs.
I wish you well in your deliberations
I thank you!!!
Issued by North West Provincial Government
14 August 2003
Source: North West Provincial Government
Title: Molefe: North West summit on integrated development planning
SPEECH BY THE NORTH WEST PREMIER, DR POPO SIMON MOLEFE, ON THE OCCASION OF THE PROVINCIAL SUMMIT ON INTEGRATED DEVELOPMENT PLANNING, Mmabatho Convention Centre, 14 August 2003
Programme Director,
MECs,
Executive Mayors,
Mayors and Councillors,
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen:
During my State of the Province Address earlier this year, I told the Provincial Legislature that as a province, we took pride in the fact that all our municipalities have finalised their integrated development plans (IDPs).
I also made the point that we faced a challenge of assessing the compliance of these IDPs with the principles of participatory democracy, integration with national and provincial programmes and input from traditional leaders.
During the same address, I made a commitment to the Legislature and the people of the North West, that the provincial government will convene a summit on IDPs to deal with some of the challenges within our IDP process.
This summit is a culmination of processes unleashed by the undertaking we made during the State of the Province Address. It is in many respects a pledge redeemed, a promised fulfilled and indeed a commitment delivered upon.
In this regard, I wish to take this opportunity to thank MEC Africa and his team at the Department of Developmental Local Government and Housing for putting together this important provincial summit.
Our gathering here today signifies that we have gone a long way in transforming our system of local government. We have made bold strides in positioning our system of local government as effective instrument for lifting, from the shoulders of our people, the intolerable burden of poverty and underdevelopment.
We are encouraged by the progress made in eroding the apartheid legacy characterised by "cities of contrasts", cities where islands of opulence, abundance and greed we surrounded by a sea of poverty, underdevelopment and hopelessness.
Almost ten years into our democracy, we approach the future with confidence that we have embarked on an irreversible journey to a system of local government that is responsive to the needs of all our people.
However, we still face a collective challenge of ensuring that our system of local government continues to give meaning to our vision of a people-driven people-centred government. Our system of local government must ensure that the people do indeed govern.
Critical to the achievement of this strategic objective is the need to continue with efforts aimed at strengthening the local sphere of government.
Over time we must engender an understanding that strong local government is the key to the promotion of sustainable service delivery.
We must spread the message that local government is strategically positioned to ensure that government policies have maximum impact on the lives of our people.
IDPs play a cardinal role in ensuring that our system of local government gives practical meaning to the principles we hold so dearly. I refer here to the principles of strong, people-driven, people-centred, developmental local government that contributes towards sustainable services delivery.
Our gathering here today, seeks to reaffirm the centrality of IDPs in the ongoing pursuit of local economic development and accelerated service delivery.
We are here today to reaffirm the role of IDPs as key planning instruments for municipalities. In other words, we are here to ensure that IDPs in our province live up to their sacred mission of pushing back the frontiers of poverty and broadening access to a better life.
Gathered here today are men and women of our province who are at the coalface of the delivery of services. None but they understand better the daily hardships of our people.
It is these men and women who are entrusted with pursuing the strategic objective of ensuring that local government becomes the front desk in our system of governance, the point at which we achieve customer service.
I have no doubt, therefore, that this summit is endowed with a wealth of experience and talent on local government issues. I urge all of you to apply your minds and contribute to the success of this important summit.
This summit gives us an opportunity to broaden participation in the IDP process. This is a critical element in our effort to ensure that ours remains a truly people-driven and people-centred system of local government.
This summit also gives us an opportunity to find ways of fostering effective implementation and understanding of IDPs by municipalities and various government departments.
Programme Director, I note with appreciation the fact that this summit is taking place after an assessment of the IDPs of municipalities was done.
I am informed that during this process, gaps within the IDP process were identified and recommendations made to individual municipalities.
This is a significant development as it gives this summit an opportunity to address itself to specific challenges with a view to developing comprehensive, targeted and lasting solutions.
Some of the challenges identified include the need to strengthen coordination and alignment of policies, developmental priorities, programmes and budgets among municipalities and across spheres of government.
We await the resolutions of this summit to provide guidance on this and many other challenges facing the IDP process.
Out of this summit must emerge a renewed commitment from all of us to promote mass participation in our IDP process. I am encouraged that the organisers of this summit have set for themselves an objective of developing guidelines for the involvement of various sectors in the IDP process.
These guidelines will go a long way in ensuring that our IDPs enjoy popular support among our people, which is critical for their implementation.
As we define the role that various stakeholders must play in the IDP process, we must continue to find creative ways of ensuring that input from our traditional leaders is incorporated in the IDPs.
We must use the involvement of traditional leaders in the IDP process as a tool to strengthen relations between this important institution of our people and local government.
This we must do because we are convinced that traditional leaders have a critical role to play in promoting sustainable development particularly in rural areas.
This summit must succeed in its objective of seeking consensus on a practical plan to align provincial planning and budgeting to the needs of municipalities. This is important if we are to eliminate duplication and wastage in service delivery.
We expect this summit to make input that will contribute towards the adoption a project register and an IDP nerve centre. This will assist the process of facilitating proper integration among the various spheres of government.
We are also awaiting the outcome of deliberations from this summit around the critical area of building capacity for the implementation of IDPs.
Without an effective capacity building programme, we face the serious risk of failing in our strategic goal of building developmental local government.
We must use the recently launched Municipal Leadership Academy to foster greater understanding of the IDP process and its implementation among all stakeholders.
Programme Director, Ladies and Gentlemen, it is crucial that this summit achieves all its objectives so that it could assists the process of consolidating government-wide planning for sustainable development through IDPs.
I wish you well in your deliberations
I thank you!!!
Issued by North West Provincial Government
14 August 2003
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