Madam. Speaker
Honourable Chief Whip
Members of the Mayoral Committee
Chairperson of the MPAC
Chairpersons of the Section 79 Committee’s
Honourable Councillors
Amakhosi wakwa Manala noNdzundza
Executive Mayors from other Municipalities
Speakers from other Municipalities
Members of the legislature
Municipal Manager (Mr DJD Mahlangu)
Strategic Stakeholder of the Municipality
NDM Structures
Official Opposition parties
Official of the Municipality
Esteemed Guests
Ladies and gentleman’s
Honourable Speaker…
Celebrating Three Years of Progress: Building a People-Centered City and Thriving Economy.
Firstly, we want to take this opportunity and welcome all of you at this our cultural capital of our beautiful province.
Inspired by the warrior spirit of many of our warrior king, hero and heroines of the people’s struggle in particular Solomon Kalushi Mahlangu young brave warrior spirit inspired him to declare that as it happens “it is the blood will nourish the freedom and liberation of an African child
We should draw inspiration from this warrior spirit as we enter the second most important struggle for Socio-Economic Emancipation of black people in general and African people I particular
As we celebrate thirty years of democratic break and remembering the IZIMBOKOTO of 1956, who became pioneers of women emancipation and contribution to inspire many young women of the time to take up arms and stood shoulder to shoulder with their male comrade against a brutal and savage regime, which was declared by the international community a criminal regime.
In honour of this heroines of our struggle, we call on our mothers and sisters to lead the current struggle for socio- economic emancipation to end the exclusion of most of our people from meaningful economic ownership and leadership.
As the former long serving ANC president Mr OR Tambo professed that the right to vote alone without the destruction of the colonial and apartheid economic structure will be a hollow victory which will lead disappointment for the majority of the masses of our people the worst being the triple oppressed women and the raise of supremacy. This prophetic words seems to explain the current situation we are facing as a people in particular the African nation.
As we start the third years of dedicated and people-centered leadership, we should ask hard questions, consider the progress made, and identify the obstacles that still need to be overcome to realize our goal of building a city that will be used by its citizens to reclaim their humanity and dignity. As we work to create the kind of economy that will eradicate the dehumanizing effects of poverty and underdevelopment, we a reminded by one scholar when he said
“Even one step is progress as long as it takes us a step close to our desired destiny”.
Furthermore, a philosopher has accurately stated that people seek to live and grow in circumstances that empower and inspire them to be the best versions of themselves; rather, they do not eat ideas.
The city's residents, together with their municipality, will, as we said on November 24, 2021, be setting off on a journey to realize the goal of creating an African city by transforming an apartheid labour camp into a vibrant economy, taking charge of their own development.
We started a comprehensive, ongoing transformation of our institution from an inward, moribund bureaucracy into a people-centered, work-oriented organization, building institutional capacity, good governance and ethical behaviour as part of restoring our people's faith in it. We do this by making sure that we are the right mindset to perform our duties, we are solution-driven, work-oriented organization that offers our people high-quality, sustainable services.
At this time, I would want to express my gratitude to our Mayoral Committee for providing the strategic leadership, upholding appropriate oversight, and stability necessary to guarantee the provision of continuous and dependable service, all of which were lacking in the past.
I would also like to use this opportunity to express my gratitude to the municipality's traditional leadership for making sure that our intended initiative of service provision and orderly human settlement become the preferred way of developing our city according to our spatial development plan.
In this sense, we urge the people of our city to resist the temptation to live in areas that aren't even fit for human habitation.
We are strengthening and reinforcing our institution's motto, which is to ensure that the culture of work is ingrained through effective weekly and daily task planning that focuses our employees on completing the work for which they are employed.
As part of strengthening our communication we have implemented the WhatsApp portal as a communication and monitoring mechanism to ensure that we are meeting our goal of promptly attending to complains raised by our people.
This method has helped us do a better job of ensuring that our fundamental pillars are implemented, and that daily oversight is carried out to enhance quality and prompt responses to issues raised citizens.
Our budget for 2024–2025 will be primarily focused on these pillars as part of our ongoing efforts to enhance service delivery, with a particular emphasis on the provision of water and roads.
The Municipality’s total funded budget for the 2024/ 2025 financial year (which has taken into account a CPI of 4.9% into account) is summarised as follows:
- The total budget is R 1.21 billion, and
- Off this budget, R 238 million of it is foe capital budget.
Provincial Treasury has agreed with us that the municipality’s budgeted cash equivalents are having a surplus of R 111.3 million for the 2024/ 25 FY, and this surplus increases to R 157.7 million in the 2025/ 26 FY and R 213 million in the 2026/ 27, though these two outer years are drafts, which indicate the improved efficiencies and prudent management of our limited budget, whilst at the sometime improving the quantity and quality of service delivery to our communities.
We further want to appreciate all our staff member who have shown commitment to the course of being true to their calling to became commitment to service with humility and respect to our citizens.
A city without a consistent supply of water is destined to fail, so in these financial years, we are putting aside more than 80% of our capital budget to water related project to systematically reduce and eventually eradicate this existential challenge. We want to report that we have successfully completed the Bundu water purification there by reducing our complete reliance on outside sources which create a constant risk in our effort to provide this important service to our citizens and in addition to this project the completion of the Loskop project will further improve water availability in our water system there by reducing the frustrating environment of continues water scarcity in our city. We will continue are effort to increase the Rand water amount of water provision by an additional 30 to 50 megalitres per day, we believe when achieve will fundamentally change the water challenge and create sustainability which will encourage invest into our city development plan.
As part of creating mobility and changing the face of our key connecting roads, we will continue to part sufficient budget allocation to ensure that in the coming three financial years to ensure that the road from Mandlethu to Cash building and ensuring that all our main roads are not only paved but are maintained in good working conditions at all time.
The next important programme is to move closer to our goal of paving a key road to enhance mobility throughout the city, we will be stepping up the restoration and upkeep of our road network with an emphasis on utilizing new technology to maintain for longevity our gravel roads.
In order to enhance our on going maintenance and building of stormwater system for budgetary intervention will be than in this financial year in order to support and encourage our team to do more with less.
The environment appearance and the cleanliness of the city encourages people who are movers and shakers to choose to settle and/or invest into economic activities of the city. As part of creating the a clean and beautiful city the municipality will be expanding and operationally improving our refuse removal service in this coming financial year.
As part of our effort to improve our operation efficiency in this regard we will be acquiring three refuse compactor trucks before the end of August 2024 which will continue to improve the collection of solid waste in the city and would enhance the maintenance of a clean and pollution-free environment, and the total budget hereto is R 8.5 million.
Our city development plans which is anchored of the CBD and industrial development corridors will likewise receive the most attention; our new Planning and Economic Development Manager will need to get on board quickly in this regard.
Every developmental project will be carried out in accordance with our meticulously designed plans for spatial development.
The municipality has implemented our economic revitalisation through our support for 21 local SMME who benefitted from our programme to give financial support which we budgeted five million in the past financial year. We will continue to promote the same throughout this fiscal year as we foster an entrepreneurial and independent mindset which encourages our citizens to participate in the process of self empowerment wit the unwavering support of their municipality.
As part of supporting our SMME’s the municipality will be developing the Kwa-Mhlanga business park which will serve as an important pillar of our industrialisation and subsequent economic growth.
Regarding tourism, the Mpumalanga Tourism and Parks Agencies big five major initiatives, Loskop, Zithabiseni, and SS Mabusa amongst others, will guarantee that our municipality gains access to a top-notch wildlife park that can attract a sizable influx of foreign visitors seeking an authentic African experience and further support our cultural tourism and helping our people to use authentic isiNdebele art and culture for their economic benefit.
This will open up other prospects such as the hospitality industry (B&B’s and Lodges)and tourist transportation within and beyond the park.
The clear and immediate challenge facing our city is the lack socio-economic opportunity for our young people. This issue of youth displacement is the greater difficulty that faces THLM as well as our modern society.
“A country that does not care for its youth does not deserve a bright future, as Nelson Mandela once said.”
By establishing the Thembisile Chris Hani Youth Brigades (as alluded promised in our inaugural State of the Municipal Address), we hope to harness the potential and energy of our youth and direct it toward their own growth as well as the overall development of our municipality in the areas of social resilience, enterprise development, and education and training.
The municipality will continue with our struggle to ensure the young people of the municipality eventually get the technical college that we believe will make a positive difference as we continue to make our city a centre of academic excellent.
The municipality has put aside 500k to assist in the registration of our well performing learners to register at any institution of higher learning within the country.
We further implore our unit that is dealing with sports ,art and culture to continue to build close relation with all sport ans culture bodies to advance an active citizenry and ensure that we take our young people away from social ills and dangers.
In conclusion
The municipality believes that for our programme to endure, building an enduring relationship with key stakeholders (who are the live blood of our city) the business sector, other spheres of government and our citizens in particular is central to our city building endeavour.
As part of consolidating our programme to ensure that the spirit of being responsible citizen is deepen, call on our citizens that the improved service delivery should be met by community support and buy-in and the protection of all the municipal infrastructure e.g borehole and other equipment from vandalism and we further call on our business sector to take a led in becoming exemplary in becoming responsible corporate citizens.
We urge all our businesses to support the development of a robust economy and to ensure that we achieve our objective to became a secondary city to the capital City of Tshwane.
The good plans without financial support through payment of services will be led to overall frustration by our people and eventually the collapsed of our social and economic infrastructure which will be a serious setback to our developing democratic dispensation and sovereignty our people and nation.
Finally
Let us also acknowledge the Master beadwork maker, painter, remarkable cultural entrepreneur, educator, custodian of Ndzundza Ndebele heritage, professional performing artist, singer, and dancer, who was the recipient of the Beaded Category 2020 Innibos National Craft Award, and a Grand Patron of the National Order bestows the Order of Ikhamanga in Silver, Mama Sophie Msoziswa Mahlangu, also known as uNosinki.
In addition, in honouring of Women's Month and the achievements of women in the arts, we would like to acknowledge the 14-year-old former Miss Kwa-Ndebele Townships Pre-Teen 2021, who was the winner of the Miss Thembilise Hani Pre-Teen competition. Miss Siphokazi Jennifer Mohohole, a resident of Mountain View, Kwa-Mhlanga Zone 2, was recently nominated to represent South Africa at the Miss Teen of the Universe pageant in India. She was also the winner of the Miss Pre-Teen Globe South Africa 2024 and Miss International Pre-Teen Globe 2024 competitions in Paraguay last year.
Let us draw courage from their work in order to confirm the adage that ‘it seems impossible until it is done ‘
!!!!!!!!!!I thank you. ngiyathokoza, ke a leboha!!!!!!!!!