The Mayor should not be left to face the music alone: all 20 councillors need to attend every one of the 18 mayoral imbizos scheduled for the coming weeks, says Ndlambe Mayor Khululwa Ncamiso. The first of the public consultation meetings is scheduled for Ward 7 on Tuesday April 23; the last is on Monday May 20, in Ward 9’s Jauka Hall (full schedule on page 3).
In her address to the Ndlambe full council meeting on March 28, Ncamiso criticised councilors for selectively attending the annual public consultation meetings, and then sitting with community members “to ask questions with them”. The questions, she remonstrated, were directed at her “as if councillors were suddenly not part of the council themselves”.
“All councillors must attend the imbizos,” Ncamiso said.
Her comments, and the imbizos, follow the tabling of the draft integrated development plan (IDP) review for 2024/25 at the March 28, 2024 full council meeting.
The municipality’s IDP is an important policy document that guides its priorities – and hence its budgeting and spending. Non-profit organisation, Education & Training Unit for Democracy and Development (ETU) explains it like this:
Local municipalities in South Africa have to use “integrated development planning” as a method to plan future development in their areas. Apartheid planning left us with cities and towns that:
- Have racially divided business and residential areas
- Are badly planned to cater for the poor – with long travelling distances to work and poor access to business and other services.
- Have great differences in level of services between rich and poor areas
- Have sprawling informal settlements and spread out residential areas that make cheap service delivery difficult.
Rural areas were left underdeveloped and largely unserviced. The new approach to local government has to be developmental and aims to overcome the poor planning of the past. Integrated Development Planning is an approach to planning that involves the entire municipality and its citizens in finding the best solutions to achieve good long-term development.
Read the original article on the ETU website here.
Every IDP is designed for a five-year period matching the term of the councillors who approve it and who are responsible for making sure it happens. It’s reviewed every year. Although (by law) it must be drawn up in consultation with stakeholders, the final IDP, and its annual reviews, has to be approved by the full council.
The IDP stakeholders are the municipality, councillors, communities and national and provincial departments. But it’s the elected council that gets to make all the final decisions on the IDP.
In her introductory overview of the 2024/25 review, Ncamiso cites the economic crisis, power failures, water scarcity, environmental threats, and socio-economic disparities as challenges. She says the municipality is embarking on strategic initiatives that align with the Provincial Small Town Development Framework, aimed at revitalising small towns.
Municipal Manager Rolly Dumezweni in his introduction names the “crucial areas” of water and sanitation, roads, housing, electricity, job creation, healthcare, education, SMME development, and recreational facilities and says the municipality is the municipality is addressing the issue of water “decisively, particularly in the face of drought and aging infrastructure through the implementation of water infrastructure projects”.
Click on the image below to read the draft IDP 2024/25 review:
See the schedule of imbizos below:
