Now that the local elections are done and dusted, the whole country looks forward to better service delivering than the past 10 years. There is an apathy [and even disbelieve] in the institution of democracy. Now we can start a new era of improving service delivery at local level. There are two opposite views of tackling this issue :
To force the local authority by ways of protesting, damaging of property, marching etc. This way of “pushing” the authority is often met by aggressive denying, empty promises and unwillingness to ”surrender”.
The better option is to start with the premise : “Let us help you to make our town a better place.” This outlook [“pulling”] promote the sense of : “Let us take hands…” This spirit of goodwill is the starting point of this letter. There are a few pointers [some of them are common knowledge but not taken seriously]. Maybe this letter can just stimulate the council and the municipality to start a new honest drive to make us all proud of Ngwhate / Parys / Schonkenville / Thumahole.
1. Budgeting and finances
The most basic fundamental of a budget is to see to it that your expenditure does not exceed you income. The Auditor General reports year after year that most municipalities do not have a clean audit. It is common knowledge that Ngwhate owes Eskom millions of Rand. There must be some measures put in place to work towards the depleting of this debt. Furthermore the maintenance of our town must be a high priority. In this regard the financial committee must vigorously guard the tendering processes as well as over spending [and underspending] of projects.
2. Use of human resources on voluntary basis
In many instances residents are willing to lend a helping hand to improve the the face of our town. We want visitors to Parys to feel welcome. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if municipal workers an locals can work together to give or town a facelift? There are already glimpses of this attitude: there are voluntary groups helping to fix potholes, cleaning up sidewalks, cleaning the cemetery, painting murals…. There are many residents with knowledge of water purification, sewerage, electricity, bookkeeping, computer literacy and networking and many other skills who could help in providing better service delivery. Maybe it is also necessary to take an audit of each department of the municipality.
3. Information and networking
In order to facilitate this, the council can publish a map of the wards of Ngwathe with the pictures and contact information of the local ward councillors – in order that residents can know where to forward complaints. The local newspaper can be one of the means to better the communication. It could also be helpful if Ngwathe municipality can have their own Facebook page to source the skills that they are looking for or to give notices of load shedding and other important emergent matters. But even before that the municipality must see to it that they have staff to answer their telephones and redirect the public to the correct departments! These are but a few pointers…we want to make all residents [and visitors] proud of Parys !
