South Africa: Mpumalanga On Track With Poverty Alleviation Targets

from All Africa

BuaNews (Tshwane)

Zinkie Sithole
Badplaas

Mpumalanga is on track to halving the number of poor people in the province within the next seven years, Premier Thabang Makwetla said Thursday.

The provincial government estimates that 1.8 million people live in poverty in the province, while a further 3.5 million live in "unfavourable conditions".

About 27 percent of the province's population remain unemployed, according to government figures.

"We are on course to halve poverty by 2014 provided we maximally exploit economic development opportunities offered by the province and accelerate government interventions aimed at creating jobs," Mr Makwetla said at the second provincial South African Local Government Association (Salga) members' assembly in Badplaas.

The two-day Salga assembly runs until Friday and is aimed at creating a discussion forum for all 21 municipalities in the province to debate bottlenecks that hamper service delivery.

The premier said in order for the province to achieve its "bold targets" it would need strong leadership in municipalities.

"The achievement of [the] bold targets that we have set ... requires that we have requisite skills and capabilities, especially in our senior and middle-management echelons."

Provincial Salga chairperson and mayor of Nkangala district municipality, Speedy Mashilo, said the assembly, attended by all municipal mayors and managers, was discussing the performance of municipalities, lack of skills and old and new legislation that was delaying service delivery.

"Once we have debated and come up with solutions, each municipality will take them back and implement the solutions needed to tackle their unique challenges," Mr Mashilo said.

Local government and housing spokesman Simphiwe Kunene said the public could expect an improvement in service delivery at their municipalities because all municipal managers in the province had signed their performance contracts.

"If managers fail to deliver according to their performance contracts harsh action will be taken against them," he said.

The department is currently holding a special two-day steering committee meeting in White River to assess progress made in improving capacity in underperforming municipalities.

Eleven of the 22 underperforming municipalities identified by the national government two years ago are from Mpumalanga.

Mr Kunene said the meeting's objective was to check on progress made since then.

"It will also look at the challenges that have been faced and try to find ways of addressing these challenges."