Sol goes back to basics
A BACK to Basics (B2B) campaign for 2017/18 has been adopted by the Sol Plaatje City Council to ensure that a change is made to the lives of the people in the communities it serves.
At this week’s Sol Plaatje City Council meeting it was pointed out that the Back to Basics document was launched at a local government summit by the then Minister of Cogta in 2014.
The campaign is based on five pillars, namely putting people and their concerns first; supporting the delivery of municipal services to the right quality and standard; promoting good governance, transparency and accountability; ensuring sound financial management and accounting; and building institutional resilience and administrative capability.
A report drawn up by the chief financial officer of the Sol Plaatje Municipality, Lydia Mahloko, points out that an initial assessment of the status quo of the municipality indicated that the local authority had systems, structures and mechanisms in place to meet the requirements of serving the local community.
“There were areas where improvement was recommended, such as public participation, community involvement and conducting community surveys; improvement in ensuring a safe and clean environment, with enforcement of by-laws; reporting on the work of ward committees; and reporting back to council on community engagements, feedback and imbizos.”
The programme has no financial implications, other than as budgeted.
“The municipality intends to co-source marketing, promotion, branding, education and public awareness programmes,” the report states. “There is also a need to review the efficiency of the by-law enforcement section to effectively focus on transgressions and compliance.”
Actions identified for immediate implementation include monthly reporting on council activities at a ward level. Councillors will report to the speaker on a monthly basis on how they served their communities, while the speaker will report on a monthly basis to council the dates of all council-related meetings, give a summary of the ward committee meetings and highlight the issues brought to the attention of councillors and actions taken to address fraud and corruption.
The mayor will also report on a monthly basis to council on his report backs to stakeholders, meetings of the Mayoral Committee, the number of visits to hot spots and areas where there were breakdowns in community services and what was being done in this regard, the activities of councillors on campaigns to improve the culture of payment for services and against illegal connections and cable theft and how many hours were spent in committee/council meetings, political caucus meetings and in community engagements.
The chief whip will report on a monthly basis to council on the weekly meetings of the mayor, chief whip and manager to ensure that councillors are adequately informed of the municipality’s governance programmes.
The municipal manager and chief financial officer will also report to council. From his side, the municipal manager will report on the overall operations of financial management and all reported instances of fraud and corruption, the ongoing monitoring of senior managers’ performance agreements and shortfalls in the competence standards of senior managers are just some of the items he will report on.