By Zibonele Ntuli

Kimberly - President Thabo Mbeki has called on all sectors of society to work together to ensure a growing economy that benefits all.

Addressing the national Freedom Day celebrations at a packed Galeshewe stadium, Mbeki said such co-operation was important particularly among all spheres of local government level to speed up access to social services.

He said efforts should be combined to ensure speedy implementation of programmes around basic services.

“We will indeed meet the target to make faster progress in the next eight years than we did during our first twelve years of our freedom.

“All sectors of our society should work together for a growing economy that benefits all, speeding up access to social services and improved safety and security for all,” he said.

Mbeki said one of the most pressing challenges facing the country was the need to strengthen local government and there were a number of key local government priorities that had to be addressed urgently.

“One of these priorities is the matter of the capacity of local government structures. Part of this challenge arises from the absence of people with necessary skills that are critical for the efficient infrastructure and service delivery communities,” the president said.

To address the problem, he said, special measures had been put in place including targeted recruitments and secondments to ensure that municipalities had the required skills such as engineers, building inspectors, architects, health workers, accountants and others.

Mbeki said a Municipal Leadership Development qualification had been developed for councillors and senior local government officials to equip themselves with necessary skills.

“We have to attend seriously and systematically to this matter because it cannot be that after 12 years of democracy we still have municipalities that cannot deliver basic services because of lack of capacity”.

A Local Government Anti-Corruption Strategy focusing on prevention, detection and investigation has also been developed.

The president warned those who used municipalities as “cash cows ready to be milked” saying the law would deal appropriately with them.

“We have insisted that to further strengthen our democracy we must ensure meaningful participation of the people in the process of governance.

“We have among other things created a system of ward committees to afford local citizens the opportunity to contribute positively to local development,” he said.

Mbeki said the country continued to register victories against crime and criminals because of the dedication of many police officers and improved integrated law enforcement.

“As we have said in the past the fight against crime belongs to all of us and we should continue our close collaboration with the police so that we build safe and secure communities,” he said.

Source: BuaNews