By Emily Setona
BETHLEHEM – The speaker of Thabo Mofutsanyana District Municipality (TMDM), Thabo Mokoena has called on other speakers in the district to support the forum of speakers as it plays key role in sharing best practices among themselves.
Mokoena said this during a speakers’ forum in Dihlabeng local municipality on August 20, 2024.
He said there is a need for the successful sitting of this forum because it plays a key role in learning best practices from each other and to capacitate each other for the work that lies ahead.
“We need to make sure that this sitting becomes a success because it is a very important part of our role as speakers to learn how best to do things for our local municipalities and share our different knowledge and expertise with each other so that we can do our best in the positions that we have been appointed to serve our communities,” Mokoena said.
On top of the agenda was public participation, and this is where the speakers learned from each other how best they can champion community involvement in the affairs of the municipality because that is a constitutional requirement.
On behalf of the speakers, councillor Mandlankosi Dlamini of Maluti-a-Phofung (MAP) local municipality told The Guard: “With public participation being top of the agenda, one of the issues that plague us as local municipalities within the district is the issue of farm evictions. This always comes up because lots of farm workers are being evicted from the farms where they live and this because a problem for our municipalities and it requires us to put our heads together to come up with a solution to this problem. Another pressing matter is the issue of demarcation, we are going to relook the demarcation of several wards within local municipalities in the district.”
TMDM speaker Thabo Mokoena during speakers forum.
Furthermore, this forum talks to how best the offices of the speaker can champion stakeholder management, civil education and playing supporting roles to the council issues. The following are the honourable speakers that were present, councillor Mvuyo Ncwada (Mantsopa local municipality), councillor Buyi Makhoba (Nketoana local municipality). councillor Topsie Zwane (Phumelela local municipality), councillor Mandlenkosi Dlamini (Maluti-a-Phofung local municipality) and councillor Paka Mavaleliso (Setsoto local municipality).
The Speakers Forum is convened by the district speaker where all the speakers from local municipalities in TMDM met on 20 August in Bethlehem to discuss a range of issues and also invited other relevant sector departments and community organisations to present and participate in the forum.
