Municipality wins more awards
Mossel Bay Municipality scooped awards last week for its Local Economic Development Office and its Thusong Centre.
This comes hot on the heels of Mossel Bay and Midvaal municipalities coming joint first nationally on the Ratings Afrika annual Municipal Financial Sustainability Index.
The Ratings Afrika awards event was held on 10 April in Johannesburg.
Thusong Centre
On Thursday, 18 April, the Mossel Bay Thusong Centre secured three awards at the annual national Thusong Service Centre Programme Awards held in Bloemfontein.
The event was hosted by the Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality.
William Clayton, the current Mossel Bay Thusong Centre manager, received the awards on behalf of Mossel Bay Municipality.
The centre was awarded three second places, for Outstanding Thusong Mobile; Private Partnerships and Stakeholder Relations; and Outstanding Thusong Hub.
The Mossel Bay Thusong Centre thus won three of the total eight awards scooped by the Western Cape Thusong Programme.
It is not the first time the Mossel Bay Thusong Centre has done the municipality proud.
In the 12 years since its establishment, the centre has won Best Thusong Manager in South Africa, first runner-up in Private Partnership and Stakeholder Relations and first runner-up in Thusong Outreaches. These accolades were received during the tenure of the former Thusong manager, Nomboniso Jika, who resigned earlier this year.
Jika served at the Thusong Centre for 10 consecutive years and still remains active in community service.
“We are extremely proud of the performance of our Thusong Centre, proving that service delivery to our community is ranked among the top three in the country.
“It proves our desire as a municipality to treat our community with dignity by delivering services to all – across all walks of life,” says Niklaas Booisen, the municipal portfolio chairman of Community Services.
Growing the economy
Mossel Bay Municipality was ranked third in the province at the prestigious Western Cape Government Provincial Service Excellence Awards last Friday.
The Local Economic Development Office was awarded bronze in the category, Best Municipal Project alongside the City of Cape Town (gold) and Drakenstein (silver). The award recognises the municipality’s efforts to grow the local economy and assist small businesses through its business parks (beehives), the Goods Shed and the business incubator project.
Hosted in Stellenbosch on Friday, 19 April, the Service Excellence Awards are held by the Western Cape Government to recognise and reward excellence in the public sector, to promote a citizen-centric culture and to entrench professionalism.
The awards also promote the sharing of best practices, learning and gauging citizens’ satisfaction with government performance.
This year was the ninth time the awards event was held.
Mossel Bay Municipality portfolio chair of Local Economic Development, deputy mayor Cliffie Bayman, attended the event.
“We are thrilled to receive this award, especially since council has adopted and committed itself to implementing the GROW strategy. One of the strategic pillars is growing the economy. Receiving this award is testimony to the fact that the strategy is bearing fruit,” said Bayman.