December 13, 2006
By Anish Abraham
FOR the first time, Johannesburg hosted the Vuna Municipal Performance Excellence Awards, at the Sandton Convention Centre on 12 December.
The awards, made in partnership between the Department of Provincial and Local Government, the Development Bank of Southern African and the National Productivity Institute, aim to improve service delivery by recognising and rewarding excellence by municipalities.
More than 600 people attended the event, including ministers, premiers, MECs and other senior government officials from around the country. Joburg’s delegation included council speaker Nkele Ntingane; chief operating officer for 2010 ; and Rashid Seedat from the Central Strategy Unit.
The awards were previously held in 2003 and 2004; this year they took into consideration work carried out by municipalities over the 2005-6 financial year.
"It is with pride that that we are hosting the awards for the first time since their inception," Ntingane said. "It is fitting for us to have such an event, at the same time as celebrating Johannesburg's 120th year of existence."
She explained that the awards formed just a small part of a larger system being put in place at local government level, aimed at improving governance and service delivery.
Speaking about the progress made in Johannesburg since the inception of the metropolitan municipality, Ntingane said it had moved from being near-insolvent to becoming a well-managed organisation. She also mentioned key documents such as the Growth and Development Strategy and the Integrated Development Plan, which are being used to propel Johannesburg towards achieving its vision of becoming a world-class African city by 2030.
"We are a developmental local government and we will use our resources to improve the lives of people. We are lightening the load of the poor through our indigent programme, while looking at innovative means of debt collection from those who we feel can afford to pay," she said.
Minister for Provincial and Local Government Sydney Mufamadi said that while some municipalities were being overwhelmed by the challenges they faced, others were doing well and needed to be recognised for their efforts.
The present municipal system provided far more hope than the previous structure, while initiatives such as Project Consolidate ensured municipalities had access to a much larger pool of expertise in various functional areas of governance.
These key performance areas included service delivery and infrastructure development; local economic development; municipal financial viability; municipal transformation and institutional development; and good corporate governance.
The Vuna Awards were hosted at the Sandton Convention Centre
"At the same time, municipalities must improve their own capacity for autonomous action. They need to prepare for the day when they may have to be on their own," Mufamadi warned.
The awards
Short video clips of various mayors and city managers giving a brief introduction to their municipalities and the work they did, were shown.
In Johannesburg's video, city manager Mavela Dlamini spoke of the City's turnaround strategy during its financial crisis, which lead to non-core activities being spun off to form municipal-owned companies. In this way, the municipality could focus on core functions such as health, transportation, environment, planning and urban management.
Metropolitan municipalities fall under category A in the Vuna awards; local municipalities fall under category B; and district municipalities are under category C. Local and district municipalities first have to participate in the provincial Vuna awards, metros are entered directly into the national awards.
In addition to a plaque, the winning municipalities each took home a cheque for R2-million.
The winners are:
Category A (metropolitan municipalities)
- eThekweni (Greater Durban)
- Nelson Mandela Bay (Greater Port Elizabeth)
- Ekurhuleni (Former East Rand)
Category B (local municipalities)
- Overstrand Local Municipality (Greater Hermanus, Western Cape)
- Gamagara Local Municipality (Kathu, Northern Cape)
- Umhlathuze Local Municipality (Greater Richards Bay, KwaZulu-Natal)
Category C (district municipalities)
- Nkangala District Municipality (Mpumalanga)
- Francis Baard District Municipality (Northern Cape)
- Waterberg District Municipality (Limpopo)
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