‘Empower communities to stop protests’

THE government needed to empower communities if it wanted to stop service delivery protests, Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe said yesterday.

“It is only when we empower citizens as public representatives that we can begin to stem the tide of service delivery protests,” he told the SA Local Government Association’s (Salga) special national conference in Midrand.

Communities needed to take ownership of their wards and the work happening in them.

Motlanthe said some protests against local government had little to do with a lack of service delivery, but were more about mismatched priorities by local government.

“In this regard, we must always seek new and innovative ways to communicate with local communities.”

He echoed President Jacob Zuma’s call to Salga on Monday to improve communication with the public at local levels.

“It is important to keep the communities informed of the developments so that they are not kept guessing, and they are not influenced by wrong people because they have no information,” Zuma said.

He also urged communities to use peaceful means to bring their frustrations to the attention of the authorities.

Motlanthe said turning local government around should involve all South Africans.

“When we say local government is everybody’s business, we are under no circumstances saying that local government is everybody’s business by hook, crook or tender.”

It meant that the youth, civil society, organised labour, all political parties and “stonethrowing service delivery protesters” must get involved, Motlanthe said.

Communities should be consulted about integrated development plans, monitor municipal performance, and take part in preparing municipal budgets. They also had to have the information on hand about who was doing what in their locality, he said.