The lack of capacity of the North West Local Government and Human Settlements department is one of the major factors leading to poor performance of municipalities in the province.
This emerged during a meeting held in Rustenburg, where municipalities presented their turnaround plans to improve, following the damning report by the Auditor General.
“The department itself does not have capacity. The department does not even prioritise in terms of intervention. When they do, in terms of section 154, the department needs to be all the time making sure that the municipalities that are not performing; they must be able to whip these municipalities. They must be able to put stringent measures that actually force the municipalities to comply, so that they are able to deliver services to the people. And in this sense, department of local government and human settlements, I must say that it does not have that capacity. The capacity actually is lacking immensely,” says chairperson of North West Portfolio Committee on Local Government Motlalepule Rosho.
The Department of Local Government did not attend this meeting despite being invited. Salga say municipalities should urgently do away with incompetent people who do not qualify to hold key positions.
“Municipalities require immediate deployment of qualified experts- financial experts- in order to turn the situation around. Giving supports to the same people who are there, who does not have the capacity to deal with things is like doing the same thing and expecting different results,” says North West Salga PEC member, Aaron Motswana.
Co-operative Governance minister, Dr Zweli Mkhize, visited the North West two weeks ago. He said several teams made up of national and provincial official will be appointed to assist struggling municipalities in the province.
WATCH RELATED VIDEO:
