|
From Municipal Manager of Drakenstein
PUBLIC PARTICIPATION & BUDGET |
 |
The mandate of a local government to govern is enshrined in the Constitution of the country.
Accordingly the Constitution compels local governments to do one thing in general and that
is to provide basic services to its residents. That is the ultimate focus of the local government.
What this amounts to is that all municipalities including our own should ensure that resources
are assembled and made available for a contribution towards service delivery. Broken
down this means our municipality at all times should be consumed with how well will we:
· Provide clean water to people
· Provide roads and the maintenance thereof
· Keep our streets clean
· Assist in the provision of houses
When we do all these things and more, we must be conscious of the fact that we do these with
our people and not only for them. The residents, which are the customers of the municipal,
by the Municipal Systems Act should be part and parcel of all the planning and the execution
of these services. Public participation is of outmost importance in the design, the planning
and the execution of services.
At any given financial year we will never have enough resources to meet the demands of
our residents. It is therefore important that planning should take place to fully utilize the
available resource to meet the demands to a certain level. The municipality should plan
how it will build its financial base, be it the payment of services by its residents, the grants
it can receive from both Provincial and National governments, and how much it can borrow
from the banks.
The municipality must however establish from its citizens what their needs are. It must also
establish how much revenue it can generate. The municipality in conjunction with its residents
must work out a plan of fitting the needs into the pot of revenue in such a way that the
needs meet the pot and not the other way around. This exercise is called ‘Prioritization
of Needs’. This must be agreed upon by the communities.
The Public Participation is therefore central to all Planning. All measures to extract views
of the community in designing the budget of the municipality should be followed strictly.
BUSINESS FORUM
The high rise of unemployment and high levels of poverty found in many pockets in
Drakenstein forces us to have a new look at how we do business in our area. Drakenstein
municipality like most municipalities in South Africa found them faced with the reality that
they should look beyond their constitutional responsibility of providing basic services to
their communities and get into a new territory of influencing the direction the growth of
local economy should take. This is achieved by deliberately getting into formulating,
putting in action and driving such processes that are aimed at alleviating all the social
ills mentioned above.
In recognition of this new responsibility our municipality embarked vigorously on a campaign
to form strategic partnership with business. To this end the municipal manager took it upon
himself to engage with all captains of business and industry found in Drakenstein with the
view of encouraging them to re-align themselves and form a united front that will begin
to talk in one voice. The sole aim was to have a voice that will be active in influencing
growth of local economy. On the other hand this block of business will have a crucial
role to play in terms of prompting their members to become levers of change in Drakenstein.
The response was overwhelming. This comes at the backdrop of business fraternity
that had organized themselves in the past in small formations that did not have much
voice to be listened to. The recently Business Summit that was led by Drakenstein
municipality managed to pull close to all business formations found in its jurisdiction.
Mouthwatering discussions on matters of high importance related to the economic
growth of Drakenstein were entertained. Five commissions were held that deliberated
with gust and zest the following issues:
1. Tourism Retention and Development in Drakenstein
2. Relationship between big and small business in Drakenstein
3. Impediments to do business in Drakenstein
4. Coaching and Mentoring as tools to economic growth
5. Agricultural Development and Agri-Business
The result of the summit was the formation of Drakenstein Business Federation. This would
not have come at a better time if one considers that immediately after the summit refreshing
pronouncements on New Economic Growth Path were made by the National Government.
This Growth Path speaks about how several sectors would be called to create new jobs.
This message by the way is the same that flowed out of discussion in our Business Summit.
Based on the statement from the National Government that business and government should
provide necessary space for more absorptive economy, a partnership that has no precedence
should be struck between Drakenstein Municipality and Drakenstein Business Federation.
This partnership should not only be formed but it should be jealously guarded so that come
2020 dramatic improvements in our economy will be observed. This marriage between business
and municipality in the next 10 years should be allowed to grow exponentially if we are
going to benefit from it.