State of the district address at the

STATE OF THE MUNICIPAL ADDRESS
MASERUMULA PARK SPORT GROUND
06 MARCH 2009 10:00
By CLLR. Q.E. MOKHABELA
MAYOR OF MAKHUDUTHAMAGA LOCAL MUNICIPALITY
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MADAM SPEAKER
HOUNORABLE MEC OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND HOUSING, MAITE
NKOANA-MASHABANE
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MEMBERS
CHIEF WHIP AND COUNCILORS
TRADITIONAL LEADERS
CHAIRPERSON OF THE OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE
MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT AND PROVINCIAL LEGISLATURE
MANAGERS OF GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS
LEADERSHIP OF THE ANC AND other POLITICAL ORGANIZATIONS
LEADERS OF RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS
MEMBERS OF WARD COMMITTEES
BUSINESS LEADERS
SPECIAL PROGRAM COUNCIL MEMBERS
GUESTS, FRIENDS AND COMRADES
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Madam speaker I feel honored and privileged today to address the people of MAKHUDUTHAMAGA on matters of critical important to their lives.
Madam speaker this event comes at the time when we are celebrating the month of March as a human rights month. We are celebrating this month madam speaker by also launching our municipal infrastructure plants and soil turning ceremony as human rights This gathering takes place a month prior the long weekend of Easter holidays when communities shall be heading to their respective places of worships. We are appealing to all our road users to always take precautionary measure and stay alive.
We are meeting today just a month before the national and provincial elections in this country. We are hoping that as the nation is embarking on a democratic process, the results should be free and fair. We urge all South African, black and white, young and old, disabled and able bodies to joint in their long queues to exercise their democratic right of choosing the party that has brought about a better life in the lives of many does giving it fresh mandate to continue doing more. We are meeting here again madam speaker just under a week after the District Executive Mayor Cde Namane Masemola delivered a well deserved state of the district address. Our responsibilities as local municipalities is to ensure that we follow in the footsteps of the district in carrying the mandate of our people as contained in the people’s contract, that of delivering basic services to the majority of our people.
Madam speaker in looking back where we come from since last year, we should look at the close relations between policies and outcomes, between implementation and effect, benefits and impact of social development. In accelerating quality service delivery, we should constantly and continuously take stock of our activities and do impact assessment about the efficiency and effectiveness of our machinery in bettering the lives of our SOMA 2009
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Our commitment to accelerate quality service delivery shall be best manifested in our standard services delivery charter that shall be launched this year. The charter shall be inline with national governments services delivery standards charter and shall be clearly articulated in the municipal service delivery budget implementation plan. In looking back (14) years of our democratic government, there have been significant service delivery in terms of our constitutional mandate as contained in the African National Congress manifestos, which placed the needs of the poor and social issues such as health care, education and social safety net at the developmental agenda of the nation.
Our health system is maturing. As we move towards meeting our policy objective of universal access to primary health care, we are proud to announce that majority of our primary health care facilities are accessible 24 hours and the projects of building clinics are registering a considerable progress as many are completed since last year. Madam speaker despite the gains in health services we are still challenged by lack of medical professionals in our hospitals, and shortage of medicines and poor responds on part of EMS shall be the thing of the past this year and beyond. Our continue engagement with our sister department in this regard has ensured that collectively we adhere to the provincial EMS response time from current 25 to 20 minutes in urban areas and from 45 Madam speaker the challenge of HIV and AIDS still remain unchallenged, however reports indicates that much dent has been made since last year in combating and controlling the pandemic. This has been attributed to the well developed and implemented comprehensive HIV and AIDS care, treatment and management program together with our stakeholders. We still appeal to our people to practice safer sex by adhering to our central massage of Abstinence, Faithful to one partner and Condom use. Let us all remember that your sexual health is your responsibility.
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Building on the gains made does far, ours is a fundamental need to accelerate these quality basic services to our society in order to meet the millennium development goals Madam Speaker, the project we are involved in, of defending, deepening and advancing Reconstruction and Development Program expects us to provide and meet basic needs of our motive forces of our National Democratic Revolution, develop human capital, build a strong institution and democratize society. And in fulfilling our imperatives of coherent and effective actions we need enhanced collective leadership vigilant enough not to allow potential tensions to jeopardize it, because it is in the nature of collective interaction that tensions will occur which require adaptation and constant adjustment.
Madam speaker this can only be achieved through working together as politicians, administration and general society, recognizing our powers and functions, our roles and Pronouncements have been made previously about the District Logistics hub that will become the Centre of Government cluster and administration within the context of District and Provincial growth and Development strategy. This includes the movement of Regional offices from Lebowakgomo to Jane-Furse. Madam speaker in taking the process forward I am proud to announce that at present, the technical processes around declaration of Jane-Furse, as a township are underway. Despite some challenges experienced we shall continue with our stakeholders including our Magoshi in ensuring that necessary arrangements from the site of the local municipality are taken care. Madam speaker we welcome with both hands opened the decision by the district council and other government departments to relocate their offices “SHIKISHA DIRA LE MOLAPO, MPHAGO WA DIRA KE MEETSE” The
provision of sustainable water to the communities remains one of the key functions of our SOMA 2009
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municipal Institutions. The research report conducted by the district municipality shows that the greater part of our area has what is called carbonates water type that leaves us with unreliable underground water sources. Together with the district municipality as a water authority there are Bulk Water supply schemes that are at various stages of  Steelpoort to Jane-Furse Bulk water supply –which will benefit Jane-Furse and  Nkadimeng Bulk water supply which will benefit twenty (20) villages.
 Rietfontein – Spitskop Bulk Supply has been completed and will benefiting We are also continuing to provide together with the district municipality the water tankers to the villages as a medium term relieve.
The completion of the De Hoop dam project in Steelpoort shall not only provide household with sustainable water and sanitation but shall also provide farmers with the Our efforts to invest in the second economy to create jobs and fight poverty are expanding very well. In terms of institutional building and policy framework we are getting reports that the launched LED Forum on the 19th February 2008 is performing up to the satisfactory and implementing without hassles the LED strategy. As we build from the foundation laid, our LED strategy was reviewed, effectively utilize the LED Forum advices the Municipality on its economic route and begins the process to develop our To date we can amicable proclaim the following as our local economic drivers: - Agriculture, Tourism, SMME development and Services. A strategic planning session was held with the department of Agriculture to have coordinated efforts in uplifting agriculture development. We have together prioritized the following agricultural development enterprises for support to complete their infrastructure operation:-Lepelle irrigation scheme, Tjatane irrigation scheme, Setlaboswane irrigation scheme and the new SOMA 2009
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On SMME and Cooperative development we need to intensify and monitor our partnership with the department of Labour, SEDA and LIBSA to ensure that necessary Tourism remains one of the key potential sectors to create sustainable jobs in our local economy. As a Municipality will continue to give necessary support to tourism programmes and its promotion. Same as we did last year during our annual heritage festival, we shall continue to have our annual heritage festival to support and promote our local tourism products. The LED unit is again working on a permanent cultural exhibition in Jane Furse to serve as the marketing centre for our tourism products.
Skill development remains one of the key challenges to our local economy. More training programmes to increase the local productivity should be organized. The skills base of the local Municipality determines its productivity rate. We had last year about 450 young people participating on skills development through learnership on Carpentry, Agriculture, Tourism, Construction, Beautification and Electricity and we hope working together with other government departments to double or triple the number. We are currently working on developing mechanism to break bureaucracy and bottlenecks in an attempt to attract investors and create an enabling environment for The LED unit is further challenged to develop its funding policy that will assist the Municipality in terms of budgeting for economic programmes and respond on what informed the Municipality to fund certain projects and fund others. The policy should clarify, prioritize and separate between projects that are for poverty eradication (food security) and those meant for economic development support.
Madam speaker the issue of electricity supply is still a challenge in providing basic electricity to our communities particularly in areas where Eskom does not have capacity SOMA 2009
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to distribute electricity. Madam Speaker Makhuduthamaga has about eleven villages without electricity and this does not include the outstanding post connection where Eskom has pronounced lack of capacity. However, it should be noted that together with district municipality a budget for electricity connections to these villages has been said aside while working with Eskom to generate sufficient capacity to distribute their energy. We are optimistic that in the next financial year Eskom would have developed that capacity to discharge their responsibility.
Over and above the eleven villages to be electrified, madam speaker we are today proudly announcing that we are celebrating the soil turning of the electricity projects due to commence in the villages of Pitsaneng/Maraganeng, Ga-Selepe, and Moela/Kgopane.
The construction of the street lights in Jane Furse has commenced and is now nearing Madam speaker with current developments regarding electricity implementation plan we are positive that by 2011 we shall be having 98% of villages electrified and by 2013 the entire Makhuduthamaga shall be with electricity provided that our communities continue to show support on the ruling party (ANC).
Our collaboration with Eskom in addressing the challenges of electricity is paying off. We hope in this year of hope that the project by the Eskom of constructing the hydroelectricity power station in our district using the De Hoop dam water project shall provide lasting solution to the power supply in our municipality. Madam speaker in terms of the National Emergency we are still calling our people to continue to re-adjust their electricity usage patterns and use electricity saving appliances. Madam speaker our roads particularly internal roads in our villages are in a stage that requires immediate attention. We should note that as municipality we always set aside budget for roads re-gravelling annually using the infrastructure plants leased from the department of public works. In our 2007/8 IDP/budget we have budgeted the SOMA 2009
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procurement of our own municipal infrastructure plants so that we urgently and with ease intervene to this mammoth task challenging accessibility to communities. Madam Speaker we are proud today to pronounce that we shall all of us witness the unveiling of those municipal infrastructure plants immediately after my speech. The issue of inaccessible roads it will be the thing of the past. We heard many times that our ambulances could not reach our people because our roads were not accessible, we learnt that many criminals use to take advantage of the inaccessible roads and managed in some instances to escape arrests because of police vans could not access certain roads. We are now ensuring the people of Makhuduthamaga that this will not happen anymore. If you are asking for government services and you are informed that the ambulance or police van could not reach you, please report the matter to the senior officials of the affected departments.
Madam speaker our permanent solution to provision of access roads to our communities where in we erected the paving on our streets continues uninterrupted at Glen Cowie and Makgeru villages. We shall today madam speaker celebrate the soil turning of the major tar roads constructions in the villages of Tshehla, Kutupu, Mohlwarekoma, Rietfontein/Vierfontein, and Tshehlwaneng. The recently completed construction of bridges and other roads connecting villages, affirm our continue commitment of providing need satisfying and sustainable quality service delivery Madam Speaker, 2009, is to us a year of important historical events. We are here to recognize the 81th Anniversary of Manche Masemola who stood as symbol of hope for the religious community in the District and beyond. Her recognition as a symbol of resilience and commitment should be explored. May the spirit of this Saint rest in peace and intercede on our behalf for better things to come. It is such types of courage drawn from our fore bearers that continues to infuse a spirit of collectivity and resilience as we resolutely follow our path at all times. We derive strength and wisdom from their lessons.
As municipality we are going to engage with our district municipality and the national heritage council to declare Manche Masemola as the national heritage site.
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We shall this year having been advised by the sport loving people of MAKHUDUTHAMAGA and the youth of this municipality, renovate and maintain all of our sporting facilities including the Peter Nchabeleng sports complex and Glen Cowie sport centre. We shall continue to work closely with the department of sport art and culture in taping sporting skills to our communities through the programme of Siyadlala Madam speaker the good news bible taught us that I quote “cleanliness is next to Godliness”. It is within this context that as a municipality we have jointly with the provincial department of environmental affairs, piloted a project of cleaning our environment in 2007 and the progress to date shows serious improvements in the cleanliness of our area. Our people have taking to themselves the responsibility of ensuring that our areas are clean more than ever before. The project is piloted at Jane Furse, Phokoane, Glen Cowie, Schoonoord and Tshehlwaneng. We are building our local capacity to take over the project and expand it to all areas of MAKHUDUTHAMAGA in the coming three years. We are appealing to our communities to use this services at their disposal so that we keep our municipal areas clean at all times hopefully in a year to come we wish to be declared the cleanest town during the Vuna awards.
Madam speaker fighting fraud and corruption is critical in the interest of building clean and transparent administration. We are on record condemning any form of impropriety in our administration and we will continue to spare no effort or energy in an endeavor to rid our administration of this malady. Madam speaker, we would like to congratulate our administration for been honest and stable in the past twelve months and we hope that they will do more in protecting our institution for any form of fraud and corruption. Once again we call on our people to cooperate with us in ensuring that the war against fraud and corruption is taken to greater heights.
Like we have always said, the non-availability of competent skills and human capital poses much bigger threat to the acceleration of people’s contract in delivering the quality SOMA 2009
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services to our people. Our implantation of a workplace skills development plan has provided intervention to this challenge we are facing. We saw many of our councilors and officials benefiting from the system and we are confident that, should they deepen and advance the plan, our municipality shall be one of the most stable municipalities.
Our year on year bursary scheme which serves as the intervention strategy to our matriculants who could not pursue their academic goals shall continue even beyond this year and we are also calling potential investor to inject money into the scheme so as to increases the pool of young learners in their endeavor to address the shortage of skills. We shall this year and beyond continue to engage our sister departments to also increase the pool of beneficiaries in their bursary schemes. Critical also to issues of skills development is the challenge of assisting unemployed graduates to acquire workplace experience. Madam speaker this year and beyond we shall as municipality roll-out a learnership programme at the municipality and continue to work closely with other sister departments to increase the intake of learners in their learnership programmes. The expanded public works programme that also seeks to provide workplace experience shall be roll-out massively to ensure that our communities, youth and women in particular are major beneficiaries.
Our schools madam speaker remain strategic centre of learning in our municipality and therefore their performance have direct contribution on issues of skills development. The increase of dysfunctional schools in our municipality is a cause for concern. We are making a special appeal to learners, educators and parents to work as a collective to ensure that our schools produce the relevant matriculants who will have no difficulties at tertiary institutions. This should include the planting of the culture of teaching and learning in our youth does reducing the learner drop out ration for number of reasons.
However we shall continue to salute those schools that continue to produce better results SOMA 2009
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Madam speaker Makhuduthamaga municipality welcomes with both hands the program of government, department of education in particular, of no fee schools. Majority of our schools are on this program. Our primary schools are the beneficiaries of the schools feeding scheme program and we also welcome the government plan to roll the program Madam speaker MAKHUDUTHAMAGA municipality reside within borders of Limpopo province which have been declared the home of peace by the South African Institute of Race Relation, however this does not mean that there are no sporadic incidences of crime taking place in our communities. Our theme of people’s contract requires us to continue working closely with sister Departments, SAPS in particular, CPF’s and businesses to ensure that collectively we combat this inhuman act so that our people can leave in peace, Madam speaker our traditional leaders still remain our custodians of heritage, culture and traditions. We have within the council the representatives of our traditional leaders who ensure that their interests are well served. This year and beyond we shall intensify our relations and speed up the process of proclamation of land for development. Our vacancy rate last year was sitting at 70% and it was one of the highest ever and this contributed directly in our capacity as an institution to deliver on our constitutional mandate. We are currently sitting at the vacancy rate of 25% and hope that all the vacant posts shall be filled in the next financial year. The implementation of the performance management system as a necessary machinery to control, monitor and evaluate the performance of our staff internally shall be implemented without delays. We shall also establish the performance audit committee to SOMA 2009
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Ward Committees remain our revolution defense organs to heighten community participation in the activities of the municipalities. We remain committed to our continued support to these committees.
Madam speaker in conclusion we believe that this contents of this speech are not just speech because we are required to talk to our people. These are items that our communities have raised and will address them within the bullet speed. Our mandate is to deliver need satisfying basic social needs in a sustainable manner, and we shall dare not Cold or hot, raining or sunny we will deliver.
TOGETHER WE CAN BRING HOPE TO MANY LIVES
KE ALEBOGA
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Source: http://www.makhuduthamaga.gov.za/attachments/STATE_OF_MUNICIPAL_ADDRESS_2009.03.06.pdf