By Libuseng Nyaka
QWAQWA – The executive mayor of Thabo Mofutsanyana district municipality, Conny Msibi, has commended municipal officials for working very hard to ensure the municipality is selected among 15 district municipalities and their 75 local municipalities to participate in the Adopt-A-District programme.
Msibi said this while addressing the council sitting last Thursday March 30, 2023.
“I would like to applaud our officials who worked around the clock, under pressure so that the district can be selected to participate in the programme. There were a lot of requirements that were needed. Our officials have shown they have the capacity to meet the time frames that were put forth. We really need to applaud them. If it was not them we would not be part of the selected district municipalities.”
Msibi also told the council that there will be financial implications for the programme to kick start and reach implementation stage.
“This is one of the things that will affect our budget. The final correspondence is that Thabo Mofutsanyana has been selected to participate in the programme and Thabo Mofutsanyana had to communicate with the local municipalities because they are part of this programme. And, it is for this house to delegate the municipal manager to work directly with DBSA and the department with regard to the programme.”
Describing what the programme entail, Msibi said the Adopt-A-District programme is an initiative by the Development Bank of South Africa (DBSA), which seeks to support the municipality financially or non-financially.
It is a countrywide programme whereby district and local municipalities have to qualify; they have to submit and provide information on capacity assessment, among others.
She said Thabo Mofutsanyana qualified after submitting the required information and was assessed; they are yet to engage further with the DBSA to find out what kind of support they will get, financial or non-financial.
“We are going to have further engagements and the council has mandated the municipal manager to engage further because there is also a memorandum of understanding that has to be signed so there will be further engagements in this regard. We are happy and very excited; we will be able to perform certain functions. We will add value to the local municipalities with regard to the funding that we will be allocated by DBSA.”
Commenting on the matter, council whip Lindiwe Makhalema said: “it is an achievement for our municipality because, with the district development model that we are implementing, this will assist a lot and we applaud our municipal manager and executive mayor who made sure the municipality is selected to participate in this programme.”
The chairperson of Municipal public Accounts Committee, Setswana Chabedi said: “I just want to indicate that on behalf of this council of Thabo Mofutsanyana district municipality, this shows that if we work together with the administration, there is a lot that we can achieve. Indeed, on behalf of this council we also applaud the administration and the council.”
