A hundred graduates from North West University (NWU) will be deployed to help improve the state of struggling municipalities across the province.
MEC for Cooperative Governance, Nono Maloyi announced on Thursday in Mahikeng that graduates who possess qualifications in engineering, and public administration among others, are just what is needed to turn around the situation at the troubled municipalities.
In the past five years, all the North West 22 municipalities have failed to obtain clean audits, which the provincial government believes is caused by a lack of skills at the organs of the state resulting in collapsed service delivery mechanisms.
Maloyi said the graduates that will officially commence their duties on 03 July 2023 will be mentored by experienced stakeholders such as the Municipal Infrastructure Support Agent (MISA).
“We previously had a situation whereby we called on MISA to provide us with engineers to assist at one of the municipalities, and they did so immediately. So we are talking to other stakeholders because we must also have
people who are experienced and who will mentor them. We are setting up a team at the provincial office, which is also going to monitor the situation and ensure that this work is done and that it is done properly,” Maloyi said.
The NWU’s Deputy Vice Chancellor, Daryl Balia, believes the graduates are equal to the task because they are qualified in areas of Technology, engineering and financial controls which is what a number of our municipalities lack in terms of their development.
“So I think that they are going to bring the necessary skills to address the capacity-building challenge the municipalities are faced with. And hopefully at the end of the day if it doesn’t come to better service delivery then it would have been a waste of time. So we really need to see our graduates make a difference,” said Baila.
The Ratlou local municipality mayor, Matlhomola Jafta, said the initiative rectifies the mistakes of their predecessors of appointing unqualified people.
“It goes without saying that there are some mistakes, which were made by our predecessors where in some instances people without relevant qualifications were appointed in key positions. This is evident in the audit outcome and the administration of the municipalities, where you find that there are no systems for financial management, where municipalities are also struggling to spend their infrastructure grants. So I believe the introduction of these graduates in our municipalities will bring the necessary changes,” Jafta said.
Tebogo Segopa who holds a BA in Science and Information Technology said his skills and experience he acquired from freelancing at the provincial legislature will definitely yield positive results for the Tswaing local municipality.
