MEC Nono Maloyi calls for different approach on municipalities in North West

North West MEC for Cooperative Governance, Human Settlements and Traditional Affairs, Nono Maloyi has challenged officials in the department to turn around the situation in municipalities in the province.

Maloyi who was addressing the departmental strategic planning lekgotla held at the weekend, said the state of affairs in most of the municipalities, “leaves much to be desired”. He maintains the department, has a responsibility of ensuring that all municipalities across the province are able to discharge their constitutional mandate of providing quality services to their respective communities.

“The Auditor General’s previous reports depict a worrying picture about the municipalities in the province. Municipalities are not able to use their infrastructure grant. No municipality has received a clean audit and for us to have functional municipalities, we first need to stabilise the department by making sure that we deal with the high vacancy rate in the department. Once we have stabilised the department, we will then be able to stablise our municipalities’’, Maloyi said.

He bemoaned the high vacancy rate of senior managers in municipalities. “All most all our municipalities have vacant positions of senior managers. You cannot talk about building a capable state when you do not have qualified people to do the work’’, he said.

Maloyi said while the whole country is grappling with load shedding, municipalities must explore possible alternative sources of energy to mitigate the current challenges. He said municipalities are unable to use their infrastructure grants and the department must develop a strategy to assist municipalities to utilise their grants.

He said his department should set up proper systems to deal with the traditional leadership disputes involving traditional leadership without taking sites. “The department must have a good working relationship with the North West House of Traditional and Khoi-San Leaders”

He said before a dispute on traditional leadership is referred to the provincial government, the NWHTKL must find a way of dealing with dispute because they understand the issues on traditional leadership much better. Maloyi has also called for capacity building for disaster management to deal with disasters and the effects of climate change.

Source: Government of South Africa