Photo: (File)

BY Obakeng Maje

The North West Province’s Ngaka Modiri Molema District Municipality is the first municipality in the country to be approved by National Treasury to pledge their conditional grants in order to bring forward implementation of water and sanitation projects within its area of jurisdiction.

The Development Bank of Southern Africa(DBSA)’s Divisional Executive for Communication, Marketing and Public Affairs, Rosemary Mangope announced  at the economic infrastructure colloquium gala dinner held at Sun City Resort on Monday evening that that future government grant transfers will be considered as an option to raise capital for the implementation of various projects and programmes.

Mangope said that the majority of local and district municipalities have little or no capacity to generate own revenue due to limited economic base, and are unable to raise normal debt and alternative sources of funding on their balance sheets.

 “The DBSA is ready to renew current partnership arrangements and take implementation to new heights .At provincial level, we will continue to interact with the Provincial Planning Commission  to identify infrastructure needs and funding mechanisms and explore long term solutions in support of the Strategic infrastructure Programme(SIP4),” she committed.

She said that the DBSA has committed, in principle, to establish a partnership arrangement which will assist in the development, project preparation, implementation support and Operations and maintenance.

“The DBSA is thus called to play its diverse role as financier, partner, advisor, integrator and implementer. We hope that together with other Development Finance institutions, sector departments and private sector, we’ll contribute towards the development of sustainable social and economic infrastructure geared towards job creation and brining about good quality of people’s lives,” she concluded.

Follow us on twitter@Taung_DailyNews