DURBAN - The public protector has expressed her disappointment at the KZN provincial government’s failure to implement her report focusing on the inclusion of traditional leadership in government programmes.
Speaking during a meeting with the House of Traditional Leaders recently in Durban, advocate Busisiwe Mkhwebane and her team told the traditional leaders that she would have arranged a meeting with the provincial leaders to get clarity on why the report was not implemented.
After completing an investigation on strengthening relations between traditional leaders and local government, which emanated from the public hearings she conducted in the country during the National Stakeholder Dialogue Roadshow in 2017, the provincial government failed to meet Mkhwebane’s remedial action.
Addressing the traditional leaders, Mkhwebane said: “It was gathered that one of the contributing factors which hampered service delivery was the apparently strained relationship between traditional authorities and local government.
“There is a failure by the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs to provide traditional leaders with tools of the trade and traditional leaders are not recognised in municipal structures.”
Mkhwebane also said there was a failure by the province to remunerate traditional leaders for attending municipal activities.
The spokesperson for KwaZulu-Natal Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta), Nonola Ndlovu, said that the MEC did not have any engagement with Mkhwebane on the matter.
“The public protector was liaising with the national department of Cogta, which then sourced responses from the provinces.
“As KZN, we did receive questions from the national office to which we responded extensively, demonstrating that there was no substantial basis for most of the allegations as the province is providing as much support as it can to the institution of traditional leadership in the province on the basis of the available resources,” she explained.
Ndlovu added: “We do understand that it will indeed take a very long time for Amakhosi to be completely satisfied with the support provided, but that does not mean there's no effort.
“Finally, we do want to stress that as the government, we continue to engage with the institution of traditional leadership through the established structures and protocols to deal with the issues that are emerging from time to time,” said Ndlovu.
Deputy public protector Kholeka Gcaleka said that it was important for the government to strengthen co-operation between the leadership of the traditional leaders and the government.
“Traditional leaders are the eyes and ears of the communities and understand the challenges faced by communities. The public protector has realised there was a gap between corporate governance and traditional leadership. We have been to Free State, and we established one of the challenges faced by leaders was lack of proper communication. The involvement of traditional leaders is important.”
Daily News