24-11-2014: Mayor speaks on Palestine
THE City of Johannesburg Executive Mayor Cllr Parks Tau today concludes his working visit to Ramallah, Palestine, where he attended a conference under the theme: "UNITED FOR PALESTINE: International conference of local authorities in solidarity with the Palestinian people".
In his address at the conference, Mayor Tau talked about the mutations of South African cities in the past 20 years. He chronicled the challenges of transforming a racist system geared toward subjugating a large section of the population into a non-racial, non-sexist government pursuing development for all people in all of its cities. He also offered valuable lessons on how Johannesburg dealt with, and continues to deal with developmental challenges.
Please find below a summary of Mayor Tau’s presentation during the conference that you may directly quote him on.
Enquiries: Phindile Chauke
Mayoral Spokesperson
072 360 1533
Presentation summary
The context
•For nearly 20 years, the concept of “restructuring South African cities” remained at the top of the urban transformation agenda.
•The transformational city agenda begins with the SA state itself; and that all laws geared towards Local Government allows for developmental transformation of its operations, systems, legislative environment and goes further to be an agent that enables transformation of its constituencies and the particular interests within its areas of jurisdiction
•In 2001, a fundamentally new system of developmental local government came into effect – giving municipalities a much greater service delivery and developmental role.
•With most of the legislation defining our new system of local government and in our attempts to forge linkages and synergies, we are concentrating on strengthening the system and building the capacity of municipalities to implement the new governance model and accelerate service delivery and development.
•The capacity of local government in financing and administering development initiatives is a critically important consideration when attempting to eradicate poverty and create employment.
•A municipality can combine the programmes in imaginative ways to realise the objective of socio-economic developmental outcomes, and the impact within the Integrated Development Plan (IDP) framework requires municipalities to forge linkages between programmes in new and innovative ways.
•In thirteen years, local government has emerged from being an institution that was subservient, racist and illegitimate to an institution with democratically elected leadership, constitutional status and a developmental agenda.
•Developmental local government is characterised by the following four imperatives;
1. Maximising economic growth and social development: local government is instructed to exercise its powers and functions in a way that has a maximum impact on economic growth and social development of communities.
2. Integrating and coordinating: local government integrates and coordinates developmental activities of other state and non-state agents in the municipal area.
3. Democratic development and public participation: local government becomes the vehicle through which citizens work to achieve their vision of the kind of place in which they wish to live.
4. Leading and learning: municipalities must build social capital, stimulate the finding of local solutions for increased sustainability, and stimulate local political leadership.
The challenge…
•Despite having a dedicated institutional arrangement for metropolitan areas in the form of single tiered metropolitan municipalities, the local government system pays too little regard to the variations in challenges, capacity and progress between areas.
•There are two bases for this concern.
•The first relates to the fundamental economic importance of large cities.
–The majority of South Africans now live in cities and large towns, and these figures are generally on the rise. In 2011, half percent of the national population lived in the 21 biggest cities and towns that cover just 2 per cent of the South African land surface.
–The majority of wealth is created in urban areas. The 21 biggest cities and towns together contribute 70 per cent of the national General Value Added (GVA).
–The 21 biggest cities and towns are also home to 25 per cent of persons living below the breadline (Cities Network 2006:2-12).
•The second basis for concern relates to the fact that this concentration of both economic activity and poverty in urban areas requires specific, specialised approaches to issues such as:
–Dealing with the informal economic activity and settlements; and
–Planning and implementing in an integrated manner around typical urban governance issues, such as housing, transport and infrastructure.
Transforming Johannesburg
Developmental local government provided an opportunity to structure a clear and systematic review and a forward planning cycle that has focused on the following:
•The need to transform the local government institution internally to ensure that it can more effectively drive delivery and development
•The need to mobilise new resources
•The need to have a collective vision between the local government institutions, other parts of government and key partner organisations
•The need to reconnect local government to communities, and to empower communities to have a real voice in the future efforts of the city
•The need to define the big projects that will ‘turn the city around’
•The need to integrate across departments and to ‘cohesify’ the organisation around clear corporate goals, and in turn,
•The need to ensure that the budget is a strategic budget in that resources are committed behind clear goals
Lessons for the Palestinian State’s local government from the South African experience
•In the light of developmental local government to help us achieve our transformational agenda, we must ensure the following:
–leadership that is willing to transform society and engage with communities more effectively;
–the equitable distribution of resources, goods and services;
–the fair and meaningful participation of communities in decision-making;
–the recognition of community ways of life, local knowledge, and cultural difference;
–improving the capability of communities, individuals and the state to function and flourish; and
–become a driving force for social change, redistribution and even urban regeneration
•Clearly, the new system of local government is more powerful, non-racial and non-sexist, democratic and developmental than the previous one.
•It also stands to advance the national democratic transition, and it serves as a catalyst to take forward our task of transforming the state identified in our various election Manifestos and to give a new edge to debates about a developmental state.
•For this system of local government to continue to work, there has to be huge investment in capacity building of councillors, officials and the community. Certainly, the national and provincial government departments, the South African Local Government Association, various municipalities, the local government SETA, non-governmental organisations, as well as education institutions, need to contribute.
