At a media briefing for the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Information and Publicity, Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Pravin Gordhan said local government needs to go “back to basics’ to improve on service delivery to South Africans.
Gordhan said this would top the agenda when government convenes a summit on local government on Thursday, 18 September, at Gallagher Estate Conference Centre in Midrand. President Jacob Zuma will lead the summit. At the briefing, Gordhan said he had “conducted a rapid assessment of the state of local government’.
He said the assessment covered political stability, governance, service delivery, financial management, institutional management and community satisfaction, adding that the department has initiated a process to set benchmarks for municipalities to perform their basic responsibilities, “every day, without fail’.
Gordhan said the benchmarks had led to developing the Back to Basics Strategy, which is in line with the president’s vision for local government to be at “the forefront of improving people’s lives and creating conditions for inclusive economic growth and job creation’.
“Back to Basics will ensure that in every municipality, traffic lights work, potholes are filled, water is delivered, refuse is collected, electricity is supplied, and refuse and waste management takes place,’ he said.
