4th GMC a great success
The national Department of Environmental Affairs held the 4th Greenest Municipality Competition (GMC) at Karibu Lodge outside Tzaneen on Wednesday.
Deputy Minister of Environmental Affairs Barbara Thomson, MEC of Limpopo Economic Development, Environment and Tourism Seaparo Sekoati, Greater Tzaneen Municipality Mayor Dikeledi Mmetle and Mopani Executive Mayor Nkakareng Rakgoale were among the dignitaries who attended the event.
Thomson has called on municipalities to ensure the country’s environment is clean. “I would like to encourage other municipalities to adopt the best practices … and ensure we live in clean environments which are healthy, carbon dioxide free, which promote energy mix, manage their water resources effectively and whose resilience is strengthened every day to fight the onslaught of climate change,” said Thomson.
She said the environment sector was mandated to ensure environmental sustainability in terms of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa through the National Environmental Management Act and other relevant international agreements.
“Furthermore, the national and provincial spheres of government have a responsibility in terms of Section 54 of the Constitution to support and strengthen the capacity of municipalities to manage their own affairs, to exercise their powers and perform their functions,” said Thomson. The Greenest Municipality Competition is aimed at addressing issues around environmental protection, social upliftment and economic growth, as per the recommendations of the 2006/07 Cleanest Town Competition (CTC) Report. Thomson said she was saddened that the number of participating municipalities had dropped down to 85 from 111 in 2013.
“This implies the residents of the non-participating municipalities are going to be deprived of the benefits envisaged in this competition and other programmes of the department. The breakdown of the participation paints an undesirable picture for the objectives of the Environmental Sector Strategy for the period 2014-19,” said Thomson. South Africa has a total of 278 municipalities, which includes metropolitan and district municipalities.
Provinces that participated in the competition are KwaZulu-Natal, with 15 municipalities entering, Eastern Cape with six municipalities, Limpopo with 25 municipalities, Western Cape with 17 municipalities, Mpumalanga with 18 municipalities and Gauteng with only two municipalities. “The Free State, Northern Cape and North West provinces did not participate. This is a cause for great concern and I will schedule meetings with my counterparts to discuss this and get them back on-board,” said Thomson.
The winner under the greenest municipality catergory was Mogalakwena Municipality from Limpopo Province and under the metropolitan municipalities was the City of Johannesburg fron Gauteng, each municipality taking R3,5 million rand. Under the cleanest school category Semana Primary school took home the trophy.
