Picture: North West Premier, Lazarus Mokgosi

By OBAKENG MAJE

11 February 2025- The North West Premier, Lazarus Mokgosi said as the country marks the 70^th anniversary of the adoption of the Freedom Charter, they need to remind themselves of the objectives they set for themselves in the National Development Plan (NDP).

Mokgosi said the objectives they set themselves include to build a more prosperous country that is progressively, eradicating poverty and inequality, to eliminate the effects of apartheid and colonial discrimination that has scarred the society, in order to lay the basis for greater social cohesion.

He further said this includes unity and opportunity. Mokgosi added that the North West is arguably the richest province in South Africa, yet has the highest unemployment rate in the country.

“Experts and academics call it the paradox of the plenty. Therefore, something drastic needs to be done to turn the tide against this socio-economic conundrum. We welcome the process for the review of the White Paper on Local Government.

“The North West Executive Council is the first to be consulted and will be submitting our proposals in due course. It is our wish that this process not be rushed, but allow for broad and extensive relook into our governance model and design,” he said.

Mokgosi said this will enable them to learn from the mistakes of local governance since its inception. He said the North West province supports the position adopted by SALGA that the funding model of local government be prioritised and run parallel with the white paper review process.

“We are also of the view that a broader conversation is needed to include overall public sector funding review, which includes equitable funding to provinces.

“A holistic funding review process should in our view include in-depth scrutiny of the Division of Revenue Model to determine whether its current form is assisting poor provinces to address the socio-economic needs of the people,” said Mokgosi.

He said North West is of the firm view that the current equitable share allocation model should be centred on addressing developmental challenges confronting provinces based on their needs and not the population. Mokgosi said this should be done without compromising the unitary nature of our fiscal framework.

“However, we are hard at work to improve the functionality and service delivery performance of our local municipalities through the Local Government Turnaround Strategy. We are collaborating with the National Treasury through mandatory interventions to assist municipalities with financial recovery plans, governance and skills audit.

“There is progress, but more still needs to be done to bring the state of local governance in the North West on par with the rest of the country. We have increased the tempo of the province’s Accelerated Service Delivery Programme (Thuntsha Lerole), now Reloaded to prioritise rural communities,” he said.  

Mokgosi said this has given them the chance to strengthen and solidify their relations with the traditional leaders, by prioritising water, sanitation and road infrastructure projects in these communities. He said close to R450 million has been set aside to implement water and sanitation projects in villages such as Bodibe, Ramosadi, Signal Hill, Dinokana and Lobatla among others.

“A further R485 million has been committed for the construction of a pipeline from the Bloemhof Dam to Mamusa Local Municipality. This project, which is due to be completed in June 2025, will alleviate water provision challenges in Schweizer Reneke and surrounding towns.

“In November 2024, we handed over a R96 million bulk sewer and reticulation plant at Rekgaratlhile, near Stella in Naledi Local Municipality. Several more projects of a similar kind are being implemented in various parts of the province,” said Mokgosi.

He said North West is a province on the move. Mokgosi said they have laid the foundation for most of the ambitious plans for the future of the province.

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