Mkhondo Local Municipality undertaken its 2 days (12-13 March 2024) Annual Strategic Planning Workshop for the 2024/25 financial year at Welverdiend Guesthouse and Conference Center yesterday, 12 March 2024. Today, 13 March 2024 marks the 2nd and last day of the workshop.
The Strategic Planning was aimed at planning and creating a capacity needed to be able to deliver the much needed and required services to the community of Mkhondo.
Amongst the important reasons of undertaking such an exercise as a municipality, firstly, was to present the Status Quo reports of the Mkhondo Local Municipality and eMkhondo’s jurisdictions based on the population statistics (Census 2022), level of education, economic growth, SMME’S Concerns, Core Industrial practices which was presented by STATS SA representative in conjunction with Mkhondo Local Municipality’s statistics & SERO done by Zweli Lushaba.
Mr S’thembiso Nkabinde outlined the Public Participation (Community’s needs) pertaining service delivery which were, Boreholes, Water & Sanitation, Stormwater drainages, Electrification of households especially in rural areas, RDPs, Youth Centres and TVET College to name a few.
The DDM approach which is the fundamental of the IDP Plan and Economic Reconstruction & Recovery Plan were presented by Mr Mtha Mkhonza. It was then followed by the Municipal Financial overview delivered by Mr Stephen Chavarika and He further outlined the challenges that contributed to the financial distress position (status) of the municipality with a host of Financial Indicators performing below the Norm which were unfunded budget for 2023/24 FY, Eskom Debts & Department of Water Affairs. He concluded his speech by announcing the Municipal Audit outcome report for the 2022/23 financial year, he said the municipality maintained its Unqualified Audit Opinion (2022/23 FY), and is working towards a Clean Audit.
The Mkhondo Local Municipality Executive Mayor, Cllr Ngelosi Ndhlovu had set a tone of the gathering with mouthful information as the country’s observing the Human Rights month. She also outlined the concerns that hinders quality & sustainable service delivery; bad performance, capacity building, Target not met to name a few.
Fostering a collaborative spirit and paving ways for a more sustainable future; various stakeholders were in attendance, the likes of Gert Sibande District Municipality, Mkhondo Local Economic Development Forum, Department of Social Development, Department of Correctional Services, SARS (Customs), IEC, STATSA, Department of Human Settlements, Jindal mining and the Department of Agriculture, Rural Development, Land and Environmental Affairs.
Beyond planning ahead, the session fostered an environment where participants gained insights into the latest municipal status quo and actively generate solutions to challenges and encouraged collaboration through the Six (6) Commissions formed that were key on discussions:
- People Development.
- Economic Positioning.
- Spatial Restructuring and Environmental Sustainability.
- Infrastructure Engineering.
- Integrated Services Provisioning.
- Governance.
