Rustenburg - Service delivery protests in the North West province have declined, Premier Supra Mahumapelo said on Thursday.
“The level of service delivery protests declined drastically after the August 3 municipal election. Service delivery protest is a thing of the past. People are engaging with the government,” he told reporters in Rustenburg.
He was briefing journalists on issues discussed and resolutions taken at the executive council (Exco) meeting held at the end of October.
He said although the level of service delivery satisfaction was increasing, there was still a need for the provincial government to attend to some outstanding issues such as construction of roads, provision and accessibility of health care services, creation of employment and skills development opportunities for the youth in villages, townships and small towns.
“The Exco attributes this positive development to, amongst others, the establishment of Setskotsane Operation Centres in all the districts of the province and Bua le Puso [Talk with government] platforms which afford the public the opportunity to regularly engage with the provincial leaders on issues of service delivery.”
He said all councillors had been trained and were all expected to hold public meetings every month, starting in November.
“We expect that from this month [November], all ward councillors will start convening the compulsory monthly community meetings, to ensure that our people are kept informed of service delivery issues affecting their wards.”
Councillors who failed to hold a meeting would have to explain their reasons for not holding the meeting.
He said the elections of ward committee members was at 62 percent and was expected to be completed at the end of November this year.
He said the provincial government had established a Provincial Consequence Management Committee to deal with cases of unauthorised, irregular and fruitless expenditure as raised in the provincial Auditor General’s report.
The committee would be constituted by experts in fields such as legal, audit and finance, who were not government officials.
“Key to the committee’s responsibilities will be to investigate cases that lead the province to obtain negative audits, and make recommendations to the premier to take action against officials engaging in non-compliance processes. It is high time that consequences for not using tax payers’ money well are put in place.”
African News Agency