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&nbs p;   Date: 26/05/2005
Source: Northern Cape Provincial Government
Title: Peters: Launch of Project Consolidate


Keynote address by Premier Dipuo Peters at the launch of Project Consolidate, Kimberley

* Programme Director
* MECs, MPs & MPLs
* Honourable Mayors and Councillors
* The Leadership of SALGA
* Officials of Government
* Traditional Leaders present here
* Leaders of faith-based structures
* Business representatives
* Republic of Community-Based Organisations and NGOs
* Media Representatives
* Distinguished guests
* Ladies and Gentlemen

It is with great pleasure that I join all of you in this occasion which marks the advancement and of consolidation for Local Government. The strength and might of our local government institutions remain as one of the critical instruments of government which are central in service delivery.

We have moved from a country with more than 1200 municipalities to 284 municipalities and 54 districts, with 16 of them having cross boundary municipalities, we, in the Northern Cape have 31 municipalities with five districts and one of them being a cross boundary district.

The process to discontinue cross boundaries has already started and very soon we will not be having municipalities straddling across provinces. That is why we say we are now consolidating local government.

Allow me Programme Director to acknowledge the presence of eminent friends and partners of our provincial government, those whose partnership is critical to our functional efficacy.

I also wish to take this opportunity and thank all of you who continue to support us as government in our initiatives to continue fulfilling the commitments we made to our people.

Ladies and Gentlemen, our programme of action is informed by the inputs we receive from you and mainly from listening to our communities through interactive programmes such as the Presidential Imbizo which was held in the province in March and subsequently the provincial Imbizo or Government meets the people.

Recently a national investigative newspaper reported that the Imbizo as an initiative is a brainchild of the Northern Cape, whose birth can be traced to our Cabinet Meets the People interactive programme.

During the Presidential Imbizo, we listened to our people raising concerns about the way services are provided, they sighted the slow and incomplete delivery process, the lack of municipal capacity in addressing their grievances, the high municipal bills, the slow delivery of houses and the lack of job creation initiatives in their communities and other concerns.

This was and still is a serious concern to us, which is why this day is important to us. Project Consolidate serves to address the very essence of the concerns which were raised by our communities.

Let us all remember that 50 years ago the people of South Africa gathered at Kliptown and amongst others said that in a truly democratic and free South Africa “There shall be houses, security and comfort” failure to provide these in 2005 means that we are in part failing the aspirations of our fore bearers for a Local Government which can respond to the basic needs of the citizency.

The main thrust of Project Consolidate is to deepen the impact of existing policies and programmes directed at local government. This two-year engagement programme will allow national and provincial government, together with other key partners in the private sector, to find new, creative, practical and impact orientated modes of engaging, supporting and working with local government.

There is no doubt Ladies and Gentlemen, that the continuing challenge we face on poverty is of ensuring that all municipalities develop the requisite capacity to translate government resources into instruments with which to confront problems of poverty and underdevelopment. Recently at the provincial South African Local Government Association (SALGA) conference which was held in Colesberg, our mayors and councillors had an opportunity to review our progress and chart the way forward with regard to executing our responsibilities in implementing our Programme of Action.

Most municipalities which have substantially high levels of service delivery and infrastructure backlogs are now receiving systematic support which is rendered in terms of Project Consolidate.

It is a combination of this support and the expansionary budget allocated to municipalities which offer the potent material for acceleration. One of the objectives of Project Consolidate is to increase local government capacity for strategic planning. The capacity of our municipalities to prepare good Integrated Development Plans remains uneven.

We are therefore excited about the announcement which was made by the Minister of Provincial and Local Government Sydney Mufamadi, earlier this year that in order to deepen this process, nationwide Public Hearings will be held this year. The Northern Cape IDP hearings have already been held.

This exercise is aimed at assisting government on how to develop more intimate familiarity with the needs and priorities of local communities. It will also help to bring local and provincial priorities into synergy with national objectives. Project Consolidate will further enhance public participation in matters of governance and in relation to ongoing work which we do in the context of the Ward Committees.

Allow me Ladies and gentlemen to echo the words of our Minister of Provincial and Local Government Sydney Mufamadi, when he delivered his budget speech last week he said, “When we established the new system of local government about four years ago, we were starting a steep path. This was a change which like all other changes, had to begin from the place we were at. We knew that we would only be able to gain the luminous heights of the steep path if we refuse to set aside the fatiguing climb. Each one of these municipalities has a trajectory of its own, and for practitioners, choices tend to be massively constrained by the legacies of the past.”

Ladies and gentlemen

It is our belief that all these challenges will be best addressed by the implementation of the Intergovernmental Relations Framework which is now awaiting adoption by the National Assembly. As the provincial government, we believe that the Bill seeks to achieve institutional certainty about inter-sphere collaboration towards the goal of sustained positive and integrated impact on the development challenges facing our country.

This Bill also provide the framework for refining our budgetary and our planning systems and processes. We are excited about this Bill as it comes at a time when the need for the constituent elements of government to work in cohesive unit is more manifest than it has ever been before.

It also comes at a time when all spheres of government have to find more technically efficient ways of serving the people. The cooperation that exists between government departments is crucial and must be strengthened and should permeate to all spheres of government. Our vision of an ideal–type municipality is one which has a political and administrative leadership with the capacity of taking a strategic role in the formulation and execution of developmental strategies.

A leadership with technical capacity to analyse problems formulates feasible solutions and implements them in technically competent ways. Such an ideal-type municipality, given local government proximity to the people, must also have the possibility to mobilise for popular participation in matters of governance.

But ladies and gentlemen, real municipalities are a deviation from the ideal type. I therefore add to the call by Minister Sydney Mufamadi that we need to empower councillors as well as the administrative leadership, to levels of performance necessary to deal with the complexities that are entailed in the new structure and system of local government.

Through Project Consolidate we seek to erect the scaffolding for bridging the gap between intentions and outcomes. Through it, we seek to harness the additional resources from other spheres of government as well as from the private domain, to the task of improving the performance of our municipalities.

The professionals and specialists deployed to various municipalities countrywide as Service Delivery Facilitators will focus on short term goals of helping remove service delivery blockages. These facilitators who started their work in April this year will help develop plans for tackling service delivery and infrastructure backlogs. They will also help mobilize appropriate resources to accelerate the execution of these plans.

Our thinking with regard to Project Consolidate is dominated by the metaphor of a short term programme of intervention that is embedded in our long term policy goal of having a local government sphere which has the capacity to sustain itself. This ladies and gentlemen will and can only be achieved by men and women who refuse to submit to constraints, both in the public and private sector, women and men who place their talent and expertise at the service of needy municipalities. They deserve our respect and admiration.

Mayors and councillors, this is an opportunity we must avail ourselves to. It is an opportunity for your local area to strike out afresh and for yours to be transformed into a space of hope. As mayors and councillors, we must never loose sight of our people and their dreams.

The importance of caring and responsive governance that is embraced by the spirit of Batho Pele is absolutely essential. The need to compliment our skills with the necessary values and attitudes should be emphasised. We should be developmental activists and champions of people centered strategies. Poverty and deprivation should be pinned down as the enemy. Skills and humility are our key weapons. We are the servants of our people and the public will hold us accountable. By monitoring the implementation of government’s programme of action and reporting poor delivery we will all contribute in building an effective local government structure. We would know that we have transformed our municipalities if members of the public no longer feel humiliated or degraded when dealing with public servants and when they look forward to visiting a municipal office instead of resenting this necessity.

I therefore cannot finish this address without acknowledging the dedication and hard work of many public servants. I therefore would like to express my profound appreciation to all government officials, departments and designated personnel whose task it is to reinforce the effort to implement Project Consolidate.

I therefore congratulate you MEC Boeboe Van Wyk and your team for your commitment and dedication. We hope that sooner than later we will pass this phase of seeking to urgently improve the lives of our people who have suffered so long.

With our partners in CBOs, NGOs and the business community the future of our local government and indeed the future of our province and its people, is bright. Government’s service delivery mandate requires well established partnerships that can work together. The former US President Lyndon Johnson once said, “There is nothing as unequal as the equal treatment of unequals”.

Together let us do what we have to do for the sake of our people and our country.

I thank you.

Issued by: Office of the Premier, Northern Cape Provincial Government
26 May 2005

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