By OBAKENG MAJE
The embattled Greater Taung Local Municipality (GTLM) may soon be accredited and ultimately assigned to manage the full range of housing instruments within its areas of jurisdiction.
This comes after the North West Human Settlements department had a consultative engagement with councillors last week Tuesday.
According to the North West Human Settlement Director of Planning, Stakeholder Management and Capacity Development, Dr Ben Bole, the department is determined to equip municipalities with information to ensure that they are on the same wavelength.
“The department continues to push for accreditation of municipalities. So, we have ventured into a workshop with councillors from the GTLM on the municipal accreditation programme.
“The programme seeks to ensure that the process of accrediting municipalities is well understood by local councillors. The GTLM municipality is at pre-accreditation assessment,” Bole said.
He further said the GTLM is at accreditation level one, so it is capable of administering beneficiary registers and also administering the Housing Subsidy System. Bole added that the programme was mainly to equip councillors with information and ensure they understand the departmental
programmes as they are close to the communities.
“The department further took the opportunity to induct councillors and other officials in attendance about other departmental programmes. Truly, we cannot do it alone, so we need municipalities and everybody in the human settlements sector to work in a more integrated process.
“We are guided by the District Development Model (DDM). As the department and councillors, we have the responsibility to ensure that, services are rendered within respective communities,” said Bole.
He said it is therefore pivotal to ensure that all stakeholders have a clear understanding of each other’s roles and responsibilities. Bole said what is needed is to be on the same bandwagon because the department has outlined a list of services worth millions of rands.
“The services range from housing delivery, eradication of mud houses and asbestos roofs, title deed restoration programme, services of Rental Housing Tribunal, military veterans’ houses and many others.
“As the department, we have further acknowledged that we have backlogs in the province in delivering services. We also took the opportunity to outline some of the Human Settlements Minister’s priority programmes of eradicating mud houses as they are prone to recent re-occurring disasters and Asbestos roofs among others,” he said.
However, Bole said the process can only be implemented after the adjustment budget has been approved. According to Bole, the Human Settlement department is in the process of building 342 houses in Taung.
He said councillors were further tasked to provide the department with a detailed report on mud houses and
asbestos roofs.
Meanwhile, the Director for Municipal Accreditation from the Human Settlements’ national office, Miyelane Ntlemo said: “We encourage councillors to make sure that they understand the challenges within their areas, as it is their responsibility to refer such to local municipalities and the departments.
“The municipalities are key to housing delivery and it is only fair if they understand housing needs within their localities. It is the responsibility of the department to ensure that municipalities are accredited and capacitated.”
Ntlemo said this will ensure that the whole process is done to ensure coordination as directed by the DDM. He said, currently, the department is planning to take such sessions to other municipalities to make sure that all councillors understand departmental programmes and their processes.
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