‘Community blueprint’ for Ingquza Hill
THE Ingquza Hill local municipality has developed a blueprint that it hopes will encourage community participation when it comes to development projects and policies.
Mayor Pat Mdingi said the recent launch of the blueprint – or concept plan – was a milestone for the municipality because there had been a marathon process of consultation with a number of stakeholders leading up to it.
“As one of the poorest rural municipalities, the benefit of this plan is that many of the challenges faced by the municipality will be addressed, especially the capacitating of our communities in terms of skills as that will have positive economic spin-offs,” said Mdingi.
He said among the objectives of the plan was defining a long-term vision for the municipality.
This entailed doing an in-depth macro-economic analysis of both the external environment and the internal environment.
From this base they could develop strategic goals and tactics to address any problems they identified, as well as assign timelines and responsibilities to turn the plan into reality,” he said.
The mayor said the blueprint proved their awareness of the changing environment as a foundation for needed change.
The plan would help them identify and eliminate areas of poor performance and assist them to identify and analyse available opportunities and potential threats,” he said.
The underlying vision of the plan was to encourage active and critical participation of all residents of the Ingquza Hill community in their own development. He added that putting the plan into action would help roll back some injustices of the past, while at the same time fostering a consciousness of justice in future judgments and arrangements.
“High-quality education, a healthy population and effective social protection are important to the realisation of a flourishing future for all. More importantly, the plan will foster equitable economic growth and investment, as well as opportunities for meaningful work,” he said. — By Zipo Zenkosi-Ncokazi