Municipalities Awarded for Good Performance at National Vuna Awards | Western Cape Government

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Municipalities Awarded for Good Performance at National Vuna Awards

26 December 2006
On 12 December 2006, The Western Cape Department of Local Government and Housing, together with two of our category B- Municipalities we were acknowledged for good performance. This took place at the 2006 National Vuna Awards held at Sandton.

This Department was acknowledged as the best department supportive and hands on to municipalities. Overstrand municipality was awarded the overall municipality winner in the category B-municipalities. Overstrand went away with a R2 million prize in this category. The assessment was based on the five key performance areas namely; Basic service delivery, Local Economic Development, Good Corporate Governance - public participation, Financial Viability - financial management; Institutional Development and Transformation.

Swartland Municipality (Malmesbury) was acknowledged for having the best LED strategy.

Again, I want to congratulate the Department of Local Government and Housing, our two municipalities. You have made us proud.

But these awards happen in a particular context. The result of the March 2006 local government elections?

The outcome of these elections is the will of the voters.

Our response to these acknowledgments is a clear one. If two municipalities excel, the other 28 municipalities can too.

Indeed for every accolade comes responsibility and challenge. The awards are challenging us to be more hands on in our work with all the challenges starring at us.

For this reason, we are determined to ensure ongoing political stability and service delivery. Everything can change, but service delivery to the people who elected us must be sacrosanct.

In order to build on our success?

Local Government is where the proverbial tyre hits the tar in respect of quality service delivery to communities and individuals. In order to achieve this high level of service delivery we need well-capacitated, efficient, effective and sustainable municipalities that are able to deliver on their constitutional and legislative mandate. I am therefore very proud of the fact that our department won the National Vuna award as the best provincial department supporting municipalities in the year 2006.

The result of the March 2006 local government elections is commonly termed a scrambled egg. This is because only four municipalities out of the thirty in the province had a result where one party won the election and could form a government after the elections without having to form coalitions. These are Bitou (ANC), Hessequa (ANC), Overstrand (DA) and Swartland (DA).

In the other twenty six municipalities coalitions or governing alliances were formed. These coalitions and alliances did not assist in creating stability, as can be seen in the resent change of government in Laingsburg, Knysna and Central Karoo.

Local government has reached a stage and is in a space where it must now move from planning and strategizing to implementation and delivery. By and large in the Western Cape municipalities are capacitated to deliver on their constitutional and legislative mandate. This is as a result of the quality of leadership, both political and administrative, that we can call on in the national provincial and local government spheres.

In instances where municipalities have not been able to fully deliver on their mandate, we have intervened decisively together with our partner in the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA), National Development Agency (NDA), sector departments in both the national and provincial sphere of government and last but not least the municipalities themselves. The successes that have been achieved in the Cederberg Municipality shows the value of the Project Consolidate approach. This approach is aimed at revitalizing local government to address service delivery backlogs that still exist in key areas that affect the daily lives of our people.

I think it is true to say that together we are making developmental local government a reality in the Western Cape. This means that we are building local governments that are committed to working with communities to sustainable ways to meet their social, economic and material needs and improve the quality of their lives.

In order to build on our successes we must determine what the critical factors are that make local government effective, efficient and sustainable. I want to venture to say that what we need is municipalities that have capable political leadership that can translate the needs of communities into strategic plans, manage the budgets of their municipalities in a sustainable manner and provide oversight over the administrations of their municipalities; officials that are competent and committed to serving their communities; and communities that are actively involved in their own governance.

As we contemplate an reflect back on 2006 it would be fair to say that the year that has passed has been an eventful one in which there were both highs and lows. I however want to venture to say that he highs outnumber the lows by far. We can look forward to continuing to serve our communities as politicians and administrators in a manner that results in a better life for our communities.

The stage is set for bigger things to come, watch the space.

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