By Sibusiso Mboto
THE Msunduzi municipality has struck a partnership deal with the University of KwaZulu-Natal, a move set to yield massive benefits for the municipality.
The partnership will see the university carrying out research on behalf of the municipality on many aspects of development.
This means that if the municipality intends to run a programme targeting a certain part of the community, it can call on the expertise of the university to carry out research and advise on the feasibility of the programme.
It is also expected to facilitate skills development within the municipality. Skills Development Manager within the municipality Dylan Govender said one of the areas in which they hoped to improve was skills development, particularly among ward committee members.
The municipality recently carried out training for ward committee members. Govender told BuaNews that funding for the training had been received from the Department of Local Government.
"We were given R50 000 with which we carried out the training, even though we did not cover all the wards, modest progress was made in this regard."
The manager pointed out that one of the challenges facing the municipality was that not all wards had active committees. "As part of the capacity building exercise and in an effort to ensure more efficient local structures this training programme comes in handy."
The programme is expected to reach all the 37 wards in the municipality.
Govender said while the primary targets for the programme were ward committee members, they were also looking at training more people in the future.
"The important thing is to plan beyond the present so that when projects arrive in many parts of the municipality everyone benefits from it."
He said while it was still early days to determine the success of the training programme, the municipality was confident that this would prove a worthy investment for development.
The capacity of ward committees recently came under spotlight when President Thabo Mbeki said municipalities needed to provide money for the training of ward committee members.
Source: BuaNews
Presentation for Seminar
