New leadership introduced to Bitou workforce
Bitou Mayor Claude Terblanche introduced the new leadership of the ANC/PDC/IPM coalition to staff of Bitou Municipality at the Piesang Valley community centre on 25 February.
Described by a media release on the municipality's Facebook page as "an important milestone in our organisation's journey towards excellence", the meeting was also attended by Deputy Mayor Nokuzola Kolwapi, who outlined "a collective vision for the way forward". Also attending were councillors Jessica Kamkam (Ward 1), former mayor David Swart (Ward 2), Mavis Busakwe, Nompumelelo Ndayi and Bill Nel, proportional representation councillors.
Terblanche expressed the leadership's commitment to growing a culture of transparency, accountability and collaboration within Bitou Municipality. He said he depends on staff and senior managers to achieve shared goals and objectives.
"I am proud to be the mayor of this town," Terblanche said. "I am here to ensure that we continue the recent clean audit; I think it's due to you all that we obtained the clean audit. It is important that we continue this trend and it's important we continue on clean governance, and we stay a corruptionfree municipality."
He said the executive would soon launch his 100-days-in-office plan, which needs the buy-in of all staff.
Kolwapi said workers should see the municipality as a resource, rather than only a place of employment. "If we start by seeing the municipality as a resource, we will not want it to fail." She encouraged workers to be "good stewards and protect municipal infrastructure as they are ratepayers too".