North West Premier Thandi Modise has urged civil society organisations to be the voice, conscience and to provide the support network to ensure that quality service is delivered to communities.

Premier Modise made the appeal during her keynote address delivered at the National Non-Profit Organisation (NPO) summit on service delivery held under the auspices of the South African National NGO Coalition (SANGOCO) that ended on Saturday in Mahikeng.
In her address delivered at the summit held under the theme: “Making Service Delivery for the people” on Friday, Premier Modise said that the partnership between government and civil society is important to address the triple challenges of poverty, unemployment and inequality.

“We must respect the role of civil society because addressing these challenges is a mammoth task that can never be addressed by government alone. Accelerating service delivery requires us to work together, be more creative and coordinate our efforts as different stakeholders because civil society can also not resolve these challenges alone,” Modise said.

“The legacy of the Zuma administration is its achievement of forcing us to think as a nation through the National Development Plan aimed at eliminating poverty and reduce inequality by 2030.Accountability, integrity, inclusiveness and responsiveness to the need of our people continue to be important as we attempt to reassert the vision of a people-centred society,” the Premier highlighted in outlining some of government’s achievements and challenges experienced over the past 20 years.

She condemned violent protests orchestrated under the guise of service delivery protests in order to among others advance personal interests and unseat leadership at municipal level.

“Destruction of public and private properties and plunging of communities into violent conflicts without constructive engagements on platforms which have been established for dialogue and consultation undermine the rule of law and the freedom we fought for,” stressed Premier Modise.

In his address, the President of SANGOCO Jimmy Gotyana echoed the Premier’s condemnation of destruction of private and public properties.

Kojane said that SANGOCO as an organisation is concerned and affected by the so-called service delivery protests across the country which have resulted in lawlessness and loss of lives.  
SALGA-North West Programme Manager for Governance and Intergovernmental relations, Knox Mlati agreed with Premier Modise and Gotyana and said that renewed efforts at reconnecting communities with their municipalities are necessary to ensure that people centred development is the primary delivery model.
“Development must be freed from capture by local political elites and predatory corporate juggernauts who work in communities to deliver huge projects and leave communities as poor and unsustainable as they found them,” Mlati said.
Key resolutions adopted after 900 delegates from across all provinces that had raised concerns about stipends for volunteers, access to training and grant funding was to encourage communities to participate in the 7 May national elections, take forward discussion of development of funding model for NGO’s which play a critical role in the delivery of services to communities particularly in the health and social sector and the need to improve communication between SANGOCO, Government and NGO sector.-TDN
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