6 February 2006

President Thabo Mbeki says the government will pay special attention to the "critical task" of strengthening South Africa's municipalities in 2006.

Delivering his State of the Nation address at the opening of Parliament in Cape Town on Friday, Mbeki said that all three spheres of government would continue working together to ensure that all municipalities were properly positioned to discharge their responsibilities to the country's people.

In particular, he said, that would mean that each municipality had a realistic integrated development plan; a credible local economic development programme; as well as the material and human resources, management and operational systems needed to implement these programmes.

He said the integration of planning and implementation across all government spheres would be a prime focus areas for the new term of local government starting in March.

Project Consolidate
"We must respect the system of cooperative governance, and within this context ensure that we empower local government to discharge its development and service delivery obligations, drawing on the lessons provided by Project Consolidate," he explained.

Project Consolidate is a hands-on programme of support for local government that was launched in 2005 to assist 136 municipalities identified as struggling to deliver services.

The Department of Provincial and Local Government is working with various departments under Project Consolidate to improve delivery of water, sanitation, housing, health care and electricity.

"As many of us are aware by now, Project Consolidate has identified serious capacity constraints in many of our municipalities arising from a shortage of properly qualified managers, professional and technical personnel.

"We have taken the necessary decisions to attend to this urgent matter," Mbeki said.

Community Development Workers
He added that in order to improve the ability - particularly of local government - to meet people's needs, 3 000 community development workers would be deployed by March.

Community development workers are multi-skilled public servants deployed in communities to help people access government services and poverty alleviation programmes.

They work as community facilitators, focusing on finding solutions to identified needs and blockages by interacting with national, provincial and local government structures.

Source: BuaNews

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