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Speech at the Provincial Training Indibano
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Speeches and Media Releases
 Housing and Local Government

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EASTERN CAPE PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENT

OPENING ADDRESS BY MEC GUGILE NKWINTI

PROVINCIAL TRAINING STRATEGY INDABA

20-21 OCTOBER 1999

GOOD NEWS CONFERENCE CENTRE - KING WILLIAM'S TOWN



Master of ceremonies
 Members of the Standing Committee
 Permanent Secretary
 Deputy Permanent Secretaries
 Chief Executive Officer from National Training Board
 Chairpersons and Chief Executive Officers of District Councils
 Members of ECLGA
 SAMWU and IMATU representatives
 Mayors
 Town Clerks
 All government officers
 Ladies and Gentlemen



It is a great pleasure that you have attended this important event. I am deeply honoured by your presence.

My department has invited you to engage your abilities in finding the best strategy for local government training, and you acceded to that.

We have a Constitution that was drawn by our people. It is our duty, therefore, to implement what they expect of us to do. The constitution 
has created three spheres of government of which local government being the third one. These spheres are autonomous and distinct, but inter-
dependent. However, the constitution also states that the national and provincial governments should support and strengthen local 
governments to exercise control and manage their own affairs. That is partially what the department has been doing during the last three 
years  giving financial support for purposes of training our local authorities.

However, Local Authorities have been seen, since our first democratic government, to be on a verge of total collapse. This has been caused 
by lack of capacity within municipalities. This lack of capacity had everybody aiming at training personnel in municipalities. The results 
were not what we all expected. Training has been uncoordinated and not evaluated. In the meantime new pieces of legislation related to 
local government training were, and are, being promulgated. This gives us an opportunity to strategize, fully knowing the present status of 
our municipalities and the new thinking around training.

We are faced with a challenging task of the reconstruction and development of our country, and our province in particular. Capacity 
building being one of the cornerstones of RDP, is a priority of this democratic government. Training therefore stems from the need to build 
capacity

We are a sphere of government closer to the people and a point at which the entire system of governance delivers services to the 
constituency. If the machinery of this sphere of governance is not empowered to perform its responsibilities effectively and efficiently, 
democracy will fail. We must therefore work together towards building capacity of the personnel in local authorities, by first developing a 
training strategy related to the broad vision of local governance and democracy.

The department wishes to invite all local government-training stakeholders to engage in forming networks that would lead to a co-ordinated 
approach to the training of our municipalities. We need local authorities that are able to run and manage their own affairs.

We must forge links with other stakeholders as to create a broad platform of addressing training issues and which in the words of the 
President of the Republic of South Africa on his opening address to parliament on 25 June 1999, &#145;&#133;must be constructed on a 
Fiscally sound and sustainable basis.

According to the new Skills Development Act, the Department of Labour is responsible or is the custodian of training for the whole country. 
We as the Department of Local Government and Housing are not responsible for training but ironically, we have a constitutional 
responsibility of supporting local authorities so that they can be viable and able to maintain themselves. We are accountable when local 
authorities are collapsing. We therefore have to check if training offered to our local authorities is up to standard. The department will 
continue giving support in a form of resources available to assist where necessary.

Historically we have disadvantaged local authorities. Those that have difficulty to even attend to this occasion because of financial 
problems.

Those are the areas we need to concentrate our energies on. Training in these areas must get precedence over others. We must strategize so 
that delivery should be skewed towards disadvantaged local authorities. This must be done without total negation of the financially viable 
local authorities.

We must link training to the priorities set by the government through its national and provincial programmes. For example, if we are to 
construct a road we must make sure that our people are equipped with skills to assist in that construction. In other words, our training 
should reflect future by empowering our communities with lifetime skills

As we all know that our people have been deprived of lifetime skills by the apartheid government, our training strategy should also focus 
on building capacity that is career oriented. Our people should be taught &#145;how to fish instead of catching a fish for them but we 
should also provide them with fishing rods. We must train our municipalities to stand on their own.

The envisaged local authority in terms of the Local Government White Paper requires that the personnel in its employ should be well 
capacitated to be able to meet its challenges and that it should have enough resources, be financial viable and be able to survive or must 
have the potential to do so.

Eastern Cape Province is largely rural and does not have the necessary resources for the establishment of the envisaged local authorities.

Actions to uplift the required standard of local authorities by all those participating in local government training must therefore be 
taken from the development of this strategy aimed at finding a co-ordinated approach to capacity building in our municipalities. We call 
upon Funders/Donors to exercise their financial muscle towards supporting smaller and historically disadvantaged municipalities.

The demarcation process is on the verge of being completed. New boundaries have already been proposed. Presently we have areas that will 
not meet the required standard of the envisaged local authority. Some other areas will be combined to have capacity to perform according to 
the envisaged local authority. This has a direct influence on training i.e. in terms of resources. With resources, every municipality can 
organise its own training programme. However, this will require proper co-ordination.

The Systems Bill should also inform our strategy, which is still in a process of being promulgated. One of its requirements is leadership 
that has the capacity to lead and whereby officials at operational level are able to emulate it. The leadership should therefore possess 
the knowledge and skills to run an effective and efficient municipality.

During this two day session we must work hard to have in place a local government training institutional arrangement that defines &#145;who 
does what, where and when. Each of us here should know his/her role in order for us to realise our training objective. We should strive to 
have a common database of all training programmes from a central point and from which all of us may refer.

In conclusion, let us all get down to work and embark on the development of a clear and unambiguous training strategy for local government. 
A strategy that will be understood by all participants in local government training. We need to see local authorities that can manage and 
run their own affairs and capable of sustaining themselves. This we can do only if we work together as a family.

I thank you.



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