Mayors, municipal managers and local government practitioners met recently at the Cape Sun hotel in Cape Town to evaluate the progress of government support programmes to municipalities.
The conference took place a day after the Minister for Provincial and Local Government Sydney Mufamadi delivered his budget speech at parliament.
The Department of Provincial and Local Government (the dplg) organized the conference to create an opportunity to reflect on the experiences of Project Consolidate since the project was launched in 2004.
There are 139 Municipalities from all nine provinces have received support from Project Consolidate. The Minister for Provincial and Local Government Sydney Mufamadi called on Mayors to reflect on the implementation of Project Consolidate.
"We must use this conference as a platform for collective reflection on how far have we gone since Project Consolidate was launched," said the minister.
"Looking back, the situation has improved and continues to improve, but we cannot say we have succeeded, we must continue to increase the threshold of success," added Mufamadi.
During the conference, delegates watched a video of success stories from Municipalities and partners of government such as Ilima Trust, an initiative of Old Mutual, Siyenza Manje by the Development Bank of Southern Africa and others.
The intention was to demonstrate how working together has made a difference in various municipalities. One of the objectives of the conference was to reinforce the inter-governmental commitment to collective responsibility and accountability for the achievement of service delivery and economic growth.
Lindiwe Msengana-Ndlela, director general of the dplg, unveiled the department's strategic plan and performance excellence programme for 2007 - 2012.
She highlighted key areas of strategic emphasis for government in support of municipalities, among them is Public Participation, Monitoring Reporting and Evaluation, Knowledge Management, Service Delivery and Development targets as well as Policy Refinement.
Source: dplg.gov.za
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