May 16, 2005
By Lucky Sindane
A GROUP of students studying the City's governance model was hosted by the City and its Joburg Innovation and Knowledge Exchange (Jike) unit on Friday, 13 May.
The group comprised students from Warwick University in the United Kingdom, reading their masters in Public Administration, and students from Wits University's Graduate School of Public and Development Management.
Jike was set up to provide information about Johannesburg to researchers, delegations from other cities and prospective investors who visit the city.
"The two universities have a partnership and we were approached by Professor Alan Mabin from the Graduate School of Public and Development Management at Wits University to host a group of 15 Warwick University students," said Jike's Harvey Phalatse.
"These masters students are all fairly senior public servants, mostly from the UK but from other countries too. They are mature, part-time students who are visiting South Africa for two weeks as part of their programme."
Presentations were given on linking the citizens and the administration; on the City's corporate model; and on issues, problems and solutions when dealing with a City's management of its corporatised service entities.
During his presentation Graeme Gotz, the City's specialist: strategy and policy, said, "Citizen-admin linkages are vitally important to us, but there is limited incentive to build them.
"Countrywide, apartheid pushed African people into poverty-stricken, Bantustan-states where they were no longer the direct fiscal responsibility of South Africa. The structural incentive pushed people who cost the tax-base more than they contributed to it out of the boundaries and off the budget," Gotz said.
"In the city we have ward committees, a petitions system, mayoral road shows, and Integrated Development Plan (IDP) and budget outreach [briefings], including stakeholder forums and region-by-region consultation sessions on the IDP."
Phase 1, held in November and December 2004, incorporated the initial gathering of public requests for inclusion in the IDP, the review of requests and their status - obtained from previous processes - and feedback on the outcomes of ward capital allocation.
In Phase 2, held in April 2005 between the end of recess and the preparation of the final draft of the 2005/6 IDP, drafts of the IDP and tariffs were presented to communities and regional meetings for evaluation and consultation.
In Phase 3, to be held in June and July 2005, the final IDP would be distributed to communities, Gotz said.
Speaking about the City's entities, Thanduxolo Mendrew, the director of corporate governance, said, "The City completed a radical and far-reaching transformation in less than three years. UACs [utilities, agencies and corporatised entities] were created to deliver specialised services and to relate closely to their customers.
"We have 15 municipal-owned entities. To ensure optimal management of the UACs, the City established the contract management unit and the shareholder unit. The shareholder is a unique unit that the national government does not have," Mendrew added.
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