War rooms set up to help with service delivery
One of the reasons residents vandalised public resources was that they were of the view that government was separate from them, which made this one of the elements war rooms sought to address.
Chris Hani District Municipality (CHDM) mayor Wongama Gela pointed this out at the launch of 110 war rooms in the district at Emalahleni sports stadium on Friday.
CHDM partnered with Emalahlani Local Municipality for the event which has 17 war rooms, the most in the district. The launch was attended by six local municipality mayors, speakers, councillors and government officials.
However, there appeared to be poor attendance among councillors, with the majority of the district government having deployed co-workers, and some from sub-regional branches.
The concept of the District Development Model (DDM) model from which war rooms are derived is to improve collaboration for government organisations that operate in silos to respond to people’s challenges of poverty, unemployment and inequality.
During the event, six wheelchairs, 120 stationery packs, 40 pairs of school shoes and 30 hygiene packs were donated to identified needy pupils.
Gela said: “Government viewed separately from people leads to water pump engines being stolen, municipal offices broken into and computers stolen. This is why people do not care if
a police vehicle is at a tavern with officers not doing their jobs.”
He expressed some unhappiness with councillors: “We specifically invited councillors as the champions. When they are asked to stand it is a humiliation. We hear that owners of war rooms are standing outside.”
On a positive note, Gela said 110 Chris Hani war rooms were being formally launched on that day, including those who were still pushing to be formally established receiving assistance to function properly.
“We establish war rooms, train war room members, find out the challenges, we provide solutions.”
He said a war room must be a place with heated debates on solutions, with some coming from residents.”
They should measure if government functions were implemented.
Gela urged councillors to go from village to village as the content that needed to be discussed was the identified social issues from households with resolutions.
“We should be at a point where councillors have a database with the number of houses per ward with an issue faced. Otherwise, we will not be able to bring solutions.”
Department of health MEC Nomakhosazana Meth was
representing the cabinet of the Eastern Cape as the champion of the district development model to oversee the state of affairs across government departments.
Meth felt government departments were not well represented, with some departments having deployed members from sub-regional level.
“The provincial department represented by people in acting positions is a humiliation. I heard that the sub-district manager was deployed, but I refused because we are on a district programme.
“The district development model will not succeed if government departments do not take it seriously.”
She said the launch and revival of war rooms came at an opportune time to fast-track service delivery.
Meth hoped that revived war rooms would also function.
She directed councillors to have regular meetings, identify people’s challenges and escalate them to relevant government departments for a quick response.
She urged that the war rooms not be politicised.
“I hear of councillors behaving as if war rooms belong to the ANC. A ward led by non-ANC councillors has a right to benefit from war rooms. People have a right to vote for whoever they choose. Service delivery does not see politics.”
She added that women were not at ease in their environments and that Emalahleni had been plagued by women being violated and murdered. “We have to hold hands to fight crime.”
However, the police department was a no-show at the event.
Meth believed traditional leaders were needed to eradicate the serious moral decay facing society.
According to her, municipalities were the coalface of service delivery, with people wanting everything from them.
She urged mayors to give more power and a budget to the women’s caucus for women and vulnerable groups to benefit from economic development.