THE rollout of the Local Government Turn Around Strategy (LGTAS) which aims to speed up and improve service delivery has kicked off.

The project, which started end of January, will be done in four phases until March 2011, said the Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs.

The first phase will be the pilot project in which three identified municipalities in the Mpumalanga province will develop Municipal Turn Around Strategies (MTAS).

Bushbuckridge, Dipaleseng and Thembisile Hani municipalities are expected to draft their MTAS and submit them to their municipal councils and the provincial coordinators.

After the submission of these draft strategies, stakeholder engagements will take place in February 2010, the department said.

The second phase will include all municipalities in developing their MTAS and incorporating them in the Integrated Development Plans (IDP's).

The third phase will include the budgeting and approval of these IDP's, while the fourth phase will be the implementation phase.

The turnaround strategy was developed following last year's service delivery protests where communities were demanding infrastructure, housing, electricity and water, among other essentials.

The municipal turnaround strategy will involve communities which had largely been left out of decision making.

The plan would also ensure behavioural changes were implemented at the executive level of municipalities and that corruption was stamped out.

"The LGTAS is aimed at targeting all identified gaps, be they institutional weaknesses, service delivery deficiencies or lack of technical capabilities, within each municipality and address these with formidable resource inputs internally and externally from other stakeholders," the department said.

Source: BuaNews