It’s time to start doing it for ourselves
Just like then President Thabo Mbeki once promoted a vukuzenzele approach for communities, Eastern Cape premier Phumulo Masualle wants municipalities to do things differently.
In fact, he wants local and district authorities to be designed in a way that their revenuegenerating capacity is enhanced, so that they would be able to have cash reserves to initiate infrastructure projects themselves instead of waiting for handouts from national and provincial governments. Essentially, Masualle wants to see an end to the days of local government bosses going to provincial and national governments with cap in hand.
This was Masualle’s bold message that he drummed into Nyandeni municipal bosses when he conducted an on-site oversight visit of several projects undertaken between provincial government and Nyandeni municipality.
The multimillion-rand much-needed project are part of Masualle’s small town revitalisation programme.
Through the projects, small and rural municipalities will receive much-needed facelifts and in the process improve standard of life.
Some of the projects have been completed, while others are still ongoing. “Municipalities should be designed to generate their own revenue instead of relying on handouts. We have to reach a level where our municipalities become self-sustainable,” the premier said. Masualle said that as part of the small town revitalisation programme provincial government had invested about R45m in infrastructure projects in Libode and Ngqeleni, which make up Nyandeni. The projects included erecting high mast lights in both areas, and paving and tarring internal roads in the two towns, and some of residential areas.
He said the total budget for the programme between 2017 and 2020 was R760m. Nyandeni, Ntabankulu, Qumbu, Port St Johns, Raymond Mhlaba, Sunday's River, Dr Beyers Naude, Mount Fletcher, Alice and Kirkwood are some of the areas that will benefit from the programme. Addressing residents after walking around Ngqeleni and Libode, Masualle said foreign investors were not going to swoop in and fix problems in different areas in the country. Nyandeni mayor Mesuli Ngqondwana said they were proud of the work done through the programme although there were challenges with some unhappy communities, which had led to delays in opening some land for development. He said the intervention by provincial government would help boost the economy and assist in job creation.