Pretoria - A new Municipal Infrastructure Support Agency (MISA), which was announced yesterday, is expected to accelerate service delivery in municipalities.
Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Richard Baloyi made the announcement at the opening of a two-day consultative conference on accelerating delivery of infrastructure and capacity enhancement for municipalities.
The consultative conference is aimed at obtaining further input from all stakeholders within the local government sector and the industry which will shape the work of the new Agency.
The minister urged the over 500 delegates to move away from the talks to chart a way forward to the practical delivery of services to communities.
"I will spend more time on delivery and the practical side of things, not just talk about talks which happens in conferences. Turnaround must be measurable and time bound. We should avoid movement without impact. We should ensure acceleration of service delivery," he said.
Through the MISA, the department will be able to accelerate service delivery through five programmes, namely:
* Municipal infrastructure assessment and diagnosis of the challenges with a view to find solutions that are viable and sustainable;
* Provision of municipal infrastructure capacity support;
* Municipal infrastructure implementation support;
* Sector capacity development including internship for unemployed graduates within municipalities and
* Effective monitoring and evaluation.
The new agency will among other things fast-track service delivery in municipalities including 21 rural districts identified during the recent Cabinet Lekgotla.
It will also prioritise the accelerated training of municipal technical officials as well as in-school and out-of-school youth to ensure capacity and sustainability of infrastructure.
The conference was attended by MECs, mayors, municipal managers, private sector and civil organisations in Boksburg.
