Appoint the right cadres to do the job in municipalities, says Dlamini-Zuma

Minister of Local Government and Traditional Affairs and ANC National Executive Committee member Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma has laid down the law– asking the ANC to appoint the right cadres with the right skills to do the job in municipalities.

The minister called for a change in the manner that cadres are deployed to municipalities if the ideal of a developmental state is to be realised.

“We need a new attitude on how we deploy our members to the local sphere of government. Cadre deployment is good but it must be done properly. All those deployed must possess the required skills and capacity to do the job,” Dlamini-Zuma said.

Addressing a dialogue organised by the OR Tambo School of Leadership in Johannesburg yesterday, Dlamini-Zuma said it was an anomaly that the ANC deployed the most junior members to run municipalities. She said, instead, senior members of the party must be appointed.

There was a worrying attitude in SA where members joined local government as a last resort deployment. Some ANC members in the Eastern Cape said if they missed the plane to parliament and the train to the provincial legislature, they should not miss the taxi to the local municipality in their deployment.

South Africa needed to hone in on the skills that would contribute to the growth of the economy if it was to make the vision of a developmental state a reality, Dlamini-Zuma said.

She cited the example of Rwanda, which moved from a country ravaged by civil war, poverty and hopelessness, to a growing nation economically. Rwanda is on the cutting edge of the ICT because it acted on its vision to become a major economic player by setting up wall-to-wall ICT infrastructure throughout the country, she said.

South Africa under apartheid had the characteristics of a developmental state but those were used to benefit the white interests only. Apartheid propped up white economic empowerment by intervening in most aspects of the economy including education and state-owned enterprises, she said.

Covid-19 had exposed how much the government still had to do to address poverty and hunger.

“We said mud schools must go, but mud schools are still with us. We said the bucket system must go but the bucket system is still with us,” Dlamini-Zuma said.

The quality of the service delivery to the people in most cases left much to be desired, especially in rural areas and urban townships.

She suggested that the capacity of municipalities must be increased to be able to deliver and the newly established district level service delivery model would contribute towards that goal.

“We cannot have a new plan with each administration that comes, which is what we have been doing.”

– ericn@citizen.co.za

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