Inquiry takes on municipal issues

Sydney Mufamadi, a former minister of local government, said a state was defined as developmental if its practitioners were developmental in aspirations but also if achieving developmental goals were daily priorities.

He said this was one of the observations he made from the committee of inquiry report released yesterday by Gauteng MEC for human settlements, urban planning and cooperative governance Lebogang Maile.

He added it would be a good idea for the government to have such a report from time to time to make sure certain sectors were performing as they should.

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“The system is intended to deliver certain things, therefore the task of refining the system is a permanent work in progress. Conceptually, we should think about a system as one that requires a periodic rethink and introspection,” Mufamadi said.

“Some of the instabilities that were mentioned in the inquiry are created by us, especially within political organisations because they spill over into the public sphere. We have to be large in the optical tools we use to look at the problems we face in government as an entirety.”

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Maile said the inquiry highlighted issues of leadership considerations as well as the vision and direction of a municipality, public accountability considerations regarding the responsiveness and accountability of the leadership, management of the municipality and good governance considerations such as the long-term strategy of the municipality and adherence to the legislative framework.

The purpose of the inquiry was to solve the issues that plague most municipalities.

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