The Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (formerly Local Government) was renamed recently to realign it with national imperatives.
The core of its new and expanded mandateis to radically improve coordination within government and between government and civil society, traditional leaders and the private sector with the intention of enhancing the impact of public spending and mobilizing resources so that quality service delivery and development can be achieved faster.
In a nutshell, the department is tasked with improving the entire government delivery chain by ensuring better accountability and coordination in planning, budgeting, implementation, support, monitoring and evaluation.
The department is responsible for performing oversight and support to 61 municipalities and 294 traditional leaders and their institutions. The department’s role is to ensure that the two institutions are adequately strengthened to discharge their mandate and responsibilities.
The following key strategic goals will drive the department for the next five years:
• To facilitate a cooperative governance system that will enable rapid, dynamic and sustainable integrated development
• Achieve clean financial audits by all municipalities
• To ensure that government activities are supportive of communities and encourage community participation and development
• To strengthen the structures of traditional institutions so that they can fulfill their stated mandate
• To facilitate, support and promote integrated spatial development
• To ensure capacity building within structures of government to meet developmental challenges
• To facilitate monitoring and evaluation of government’s programmes.
Traditional Affairs
The department views the role of traditional leadership as key to our system of governance and will continuously work with them to address all problems of governance. A programme to raise the profile of the traditional leaders will be implemented in order to highlight the significance of the system of traditional leaders in the communities. As part of restoring the dignity of traditional leaders, the department is ensuring that for the first time in history, traditional leaders are provided with the tools of trade and offices to enable them to perform their duties.
The department will be dealing with challenges associated with the functionality of traditional councils. In line with government’s renewed focus and mandate on rural development, there will be special attention paid to matters of insecure land tenure and communal land rights in traditional areas, which are considered crucial in facilitating rural development.
Despite the progress that has been made in many municipalities, there has been slow development in rural areas. These areas are still faced with huge pockets of poverty, unemployment, large infrastructure backlogs and poor service delivery. Special programmes targeting rural development will be developed, in line with the comprehensive national rural development strategy.
Municipalities
The department is now in a better position to provide support by developing clear intervention strategies for individual municipalities in KwaZulu-Natal. Some of the strategies include: political interventions to resolve political challenges, deployment of customised intervention teams to the identified municipalities to provide management support, facilitating the filling of critical vacant posts, supporting municipalities in developing master plans for bulk infrastructure – in particular water, sanitation, electricity and roads, and promoting shared services within and between district municipalities.
Capacity development
The department continues to offer training programmes for locally elected leaders (councillors). It also works to enhance its oversight role and assist in the establishment of audit committees.
Local Economic Development
The province faces the daunting task of stemming growing unemployment trends, stimulating existing key economic sectors to create jobs and increasing economic output to benefit local rural and under-serviced communities. To this end, the department is funding:
• Corridor-development projects to the value of R50-million
• Small-town rehabilitation projects to the value of R300-million
• Massification projects to the value of R40-million
All these programmes are aimed at creating a poverty-free KwaZulu-Natal. In order to improve coordination, the department is looking to introduce a single plan that all development actors will follow. The Municipal Integrated
Development Plan is one window of coordination for integrated, sustainable service delivery.
The department is committed to ensuring that there is cohesion in the workings of government and that there is involvement of all stakeholders.
Mission
The Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs will promote people-centred,
accountable and viable local governance that accelerates service delivery and ensures sustainable communities.
Vision
People-centred, sustainable local governance that focuses on effective service delivery responsive to the needs of communities.
Developing, overseeing, implementing, and enforcing compliance of appropriate policies and legislation.
Providing strategic interventions, coordination and hands-on support, and forging development
partnerships.
Actively creating mechanisms and opportunities for communities, both urban and rural, to participate in governance and service delivery.
Contact details
Key personnel
Nomusa Dube, MEC
Kisa Dlamini, Head of Ministry
Office of the MEC
Tel: +27 33 264 5500 Fax: +27 33 392 0027
E-mail: thina.mabaso@kznlgta.gov.za
Physical address: 1st Floor, FNB House, Redlands Estate, Wembley 3201
Postal address: Private Bag X9155, Pietermaritzburg 3200
Office of the Head of Department
Tel: +27 33 395 2831
Website: www.kznlgta.gov.za
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