SECUNDA – The office of the speaker, Mr Nhlakanipho Zuma, in partnership with Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA) held a workshop for ward committees, councillors and community development workers recently at the Lilian Ngoyi Centre.
Mr Zuma said the workshop was aimed at educating and reminding the public office bearers about their roles and responsibilities.
He said the law requires that time and again such workshops are held to ensure that ward committees, councillors and community development workers adhere to their job description in line with the law and policies.
“These stakeholders are very important in ensuring that the government is successful. This workshop was aimed to refresh them, to give them all the information they need and to show support.
“We also used the opportunity to note their challenges, however we did not want to deal with service delivery complaints and this was not the right platform for that. Not that we are ignoring those complaints, but we wrote them down and will refer them to the right departments.”
Mr Zuma said his office and CoGTA aim to support the ward committees, councillors and community development workers.
He said they have noted the complaints of ward communities about limited resources and request to increase the stipend.
“We acknowledge that there is a need for the stipend to be increased, however it is not easy and requires a certain process.
“The nature of their job involves finances for example they want airtime and data for information sharing.
“They are often required to come to the office of the speaker to submit their reports and to give feedback, that also requires money.
“We hope we will find solutions to that.”
Mr Zuma raised his concerns about ward committees based in towns and said they do not attend meetings.
He called them to form part of the collective.
