Skilled local managers needed: NCOP

INLSA

(File photo) Photo: Matthew Jordaan

Cape Town - Municipalities will need to recruit professional, skilled managers to speed up service delivery, NCOP chairman Johannes Mahlangu said on Tuesday.

“It is evident that in order to build capacity in local government, municipalities need to be able to attract, recruit, retain and develop professional and managerial skills,” he told MPs at the opening of the first-ever Local Government Week at Parliament.

The event was hosted by the National Council of Provinces in partnership with the SA Local Government Association (Salga).

It took place a week after the auditor-general found that only five percent of South Africa's 343 municipalities obtained clean audit reports in the 2011/12 financial year.

“Our gathering this week takes place at a time when the issue of the capacity of municipalities to manage their own affairs is under the spotlight,” Mahlangu said.

It now seemed more necessary than ever before “to speed up certain interventions, such as the creation of a single development-oriented integrated system of public administration, to assist the even distribution of capacity through mobility”, he said.

The aim of the week-long seminar - which has taken the theme “Accelerating Service Delivery and Addressing Challenges through Effective Co-operative Governance” - is to seek solutions to the crisis in local government.

“The broad aim... is to provide an opportunity for national reflection on issues affecting municipalities, and to seek solutions... to realise the potential of this sphere of government in improving the lives of the people... through accelerated service delivery,” Mahlangu said. - Sapa