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Official visitors from Mpumalanga's Mbombela municipality were intrigued by Joburg's practices in ensuring service delivery and turning around the inner city.
MUNICIPALITIES across the country have a lot to learn from the City of Johannesburg, according to the Mbombela Local Municipality executive mayor, Lassy Chiwayo.
Chiwayo led a delegation of Mbombela's mayoral committee members and portfolio managers to the city in a knowledge exchange visit, hosted by the Johannesburg Innovation and Knowledge Exchange, or Jike, on Wednesday, 16 September.
Mayor Amos Masondo welcomes Mbombela mayor Lassy Chiwayo with a gift (Photo: Enoch Lehung, City of Johannesburg)
"Joburg is indeed a world-class city and we're looking forward to tapping into its experiences," he said.
Mbombela is in Mpumalanga province, to Joburg's east, and incorporates the towns of White River and Nelspruit.
Johannesburg Executive Mayor Amos Masondo welcomed the visitors and had a protracted discussion with Chiwayo about local governance. "There are things that we pride ourselves on and that we can share with other municipalities," he said. "We are looking at greater things resulting from this interaction."
Chiwayo pointed out that he would send administrative teams from various council departments to gather more knowledge from Joburg, which had relevant lessons for Mbombela and other municipalities in South Africa and Africa. Learning from Joburg would help speed up service delivery.
"The City is a great eye-opener," he said. "We don't need to go abroad [to see how local government is run]. Joburg has relevant lessons for us."
Separation of power
In particular, the Mbombela delegation was impressed by Johannesburg's separation of power governance strategy. It allows to City to demarcate clearly the mandates of the political executive and the legislative functions of local government.
Masondo said the strategy played a critical role in helping execute the objectives of the City as mandated by the Constitution. It improved the relationship between councillors and administrators and allowed for accountability.
A pilot programme that has also been implemented by Emfuleni Local Municipality in the Vaal, Masondo announced that the Gauteng provincial government was busy introducing the separation of powers provincially.
"Our sense is that it needs to be rolled out in the province," said Johannesburg's City manager, Mavela Dlamini.
The strategy merges the Offices of the executive mayor and City manager to improve political and administrative interaction. It positions the City manager as the head of the Office of the Executive Mayor.
"The separation of power is clearly working [well] on objectives that legally separate the roles of political and administrative executives," said Chiwayo.
Regions
Dlamini gave an insight into what the City has done to ensure that services are delivered successfully to its residents in all its seven regions. Designing the administrative regions in 2006 was necessary to close the communication gap between communities and the municipality, he pointed out.
Johannesburg used to have 11 regions.
City manager Mavela Dlamini gives an overview of the City's IDP
The regions, under the stewardship of directors, served as information agencies for the City, Dlamini said. "More importantly, we see the regions as centres that give us an insight into the challenges facing communities."
Metro Centre, he said, referring to the headquarters of the City, in Braamfontein, decided on strategic plans after interacting with the regions. "Reaching out to 3,8 million people is not easy ... The regions are now anchors of development."
The 15 municipal-owned entities were the engines that harnessed all the work in the city, Dlamini told the delegation. Responding to a question about the core mandate of the Johannesburg Development Agency, he replied: "It's about strategic projects that need to be delivered. It's also about connectivity between the government sector and private sector."
Chiwayo said similar municipal-owned entities would help Mbombela address some of its service delivery challenges. "It's interesting how the municipality can strategically redefine its role in service delivery ... The application of private sector principles in implementing service delivery ensures efficiency."
He pointed out that Mbombela did not have any such entities, but that "we'll be coming back" to get an understanding of how to set them up. "Our most pressing challenges are around water and electricity delivery, and waste collection."
Joburg's municipal-owned entities include City Power, Joburg Water, Pikitup, the Johannesburg Development Agency, City Parks and the Joburg Roads Agency, among others.
Delivery
Driving development in "marginalised areas" was at the forefront of Joburg's agenda, Dlamini stated. The Integrated Development Strategy (IDP) - which every municipality in South Africa is required to put in place - played a significant role in helping the City "respond to what communities are all about".
A lot had been done in areas such Sandton, and now the focus was on areas in the south, such as Soweto, Ivory Park, Diepsloot and Alexandra.
"Whenever we develop a business plan, we ask ourselves, how does it help in the proactive absorption of the poor?" Dlamini explained. "We must put it in black and white that we're building a city that is responsive to the needs of the people."
Joburg should be a city that provided opportunities for everyone. "We don't want people to stay poor forever."
Accommodation
Housing is one such area, with Dlamini saying the inner city "needs to provide accommodation for everybody"; and Joburg was pioneering that drive. "Just because one is a hawker, for instance, doesn't mean one needs to move to Orange Farm."
Joburg's delegation, which included Herman Pienaar, the development planning and facilitation manager, and Rashid Seedat, the director of the central strategy unit, shared knowledge with Mbombela on the implementation of the IDP, Growth Development Strategy, Spatial Development Framework, and Growth Management Strategy.
Visiting Mbombela officials listen attentively
"We're a small city that is growing, but it's growing outwardly, leading to decay. We need to challenge inner city regeneration in White River and Nelspruit," said Chiwayo.
Tour
The Mbombela delegation ended its visit to the city of gold with a tour of the inner city.
Gerald Olitzki, the mastermind behind the regeneration of many areas and buildings in the area, took them around the empire he is building.
They visited the formerly dilapidated buildings Olitzki has turned into office space around Gandhi Square, which itself was in a bad state of repair before he acquired a 45-year lease over it.
The developer showed the delegation the good and the bad of the inner city, where some buildings are still invaded by squatters. He has bought some of these invaded buildings and is busy taking them over for renewal.
A walk down Main Street was included, and Olitzki advised Mbombela on the need to build more precincts in Nelspruit.
That he pays squatters to vacate the buildings, instead of taking them to court, intrigued the visitors.
"It's probably not their building, why do you give them money?" asked Jasper Ngobeni, Mbombela's general manager of corporate services. Olitzki answered that giving them money to start new lives was better than fighting them in court using lawyers.
The tour triggered ideas about dealing with early decay, in particular in Nelspruit. "I'm just trying to show you that it's possible to [regenerate a city]. If you want to do it, you can," said Olitzki. "We don't do housing. We do conversion of abandoned buildings."
Mbombela, a host city for the 2010 FIFA World Cup™, is picking itself up. The Mpumalanga provincial government put it under curatorship in February 2008. Chiwayo, a former Member of Parliament, MEC for finance and MEC for culture, sport and recreation in Mpumalanga, took over as executive mayor later that year.
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