Nelson Mandela Bay Executive Mayor Nceba Faku has announced major changes to ward committees.

In a speech during the 2nd Consultative Ward Committee Conference on Thursday 29 September, Faku said the committees should play a pioneering role in developing national legislation to guide their work.

He announced a system where each of the 60 wards should have a sub-committee to be attached to the municipality's portfolio committees.

The portfolio committees include Safety and Security, Environmental Health, Recreation and Culture as well as Infrastructure, Engineering and Energy.

People serving on the sub-committees will also attend all portfolio committee meetings. Faku said the municipality should also commit itself to investing heavily in the ward committees to ensure good governance.

Government has identified the committees as the most important point of contact along with Community Development Workers (CDWs) between people and government. However, many are dysfunctional and there's poor communication between them and municipal councillors.

Some of the problems are caused by long distances between towns and communities, lack of public transport, lack of community participation partly as a result of lack of knowledge, lack of adequate structure, programmes and resources to facilitate and enhance community participation as well as low levels of literacy.

President Thabo Mbeki during the municipal izimbizo has emphasised the need for functional ward committees for the expedition of service delivery.

Faku said after five years of the introduction of ward committees it was now time to "get out of a learning curve and if the need arise for us to contribute to amend regulations, we must do it." Faku also reminded the ward committees about their responsibility in the prevention of HIV and AIDS.

He said if the disease spread at the current alarming rate, it would put a strain on local government institutions and this strain would also be put on the local authority as the affected families would not be able to pay their rates and taxes, which would mean less money for the institutions.

Source: BuaNews