My fellow Champions.
MEC Thembeni kaMadlopha-Mthethwa.
District Executive Mayor, Mr Siphile Mdaka.
All Local Mayors and Deputy Mayors.
Speakers.
District and Local Municipal Managers.
Provincial HoD Support Champion, Mr Onkemetse Kabasia.
CEO of Agencies.
All Departments and stakeholders of the District.
Ladies and gentlemen.
I want to welcome all of you to this DDM Political Hub. Following our previous virtual DDM Hub meeting, we agreed that this one must be held as a physical meeting. I am excited that we are making progress in consolidating our One-District Plan. The last DDM meeting adopted the Terms of Reference and also agreed to the proposal that we must extend membership of the DDM to Deputy Local Mayors and Speakers.
I hope the Technical Hub led by HOD Champion and senior officials, including all Mayors, have met to refine the District One Plan. move with speed in identifying critical issues for development that need our urgent attention. We now need to move with speed to catch up on driving key strategic and catalytic projects for the uMkhanyakude District. This District is not one of those that made the DDM mechanism functional during the 6th Administration (2019 -2024). And so, a lot of catch-up has to be made. I commit to everyone here that this DDM is going to function, and we will make it to deliver to the people of uMkhanyakude.
The District One-Plan must articulate very clearly key developmental imperatives for the district, both immediate and long-term. Each delivery line must specify which lead Department is expected to drive that pillar. In cases where, in other pillars, greater coordination is required, which requires more than one Department, this must clearly be articulated in the Plan, including naming those Departments and Agencies in all three spheres of government. Where we, as Champions, must lead in unlocking solutions with our fellow Ministers or MECs leading those Departments, please articulate this need so that we do exactly that as Champions.
In other words, I say, the DDM One-Plan must be focused and clearly articulated in assigning responsibilities to the respondent Agencies, Departments and private sector participation. This will allow for monitoring and evaluation each time we meet, easily.
We will need a decision matrix dashboard to help us have a line of sight in status reports for all key projects.
We are emphasising a focus on infrastructure projects because they are catalytic in nature, they create jobs and help to create real and permanent development for our people. Infrastructure and other catalytic projects attract investments at the local level. When we speak of municipalities achieving an investment grade by rating agencies such as S&P, Moody’s and Fitch (Although they still focus on our Metros), they look at the amount of, and quality of, infrastructure and the capacity to drive the catalytic projects to execution.
These are key metrics for an investment-grade municipality, and nothing is stopping a rural district if its local municipalities are competent with excellent teams to achieve a sub-grade rating.
All of us must have a clear imagination of what uMkhanyakude in a decade can look like with all projects successfully implemented in each identified local municipality.
It is this spirit of building for the next generation, a better uMkhanyakude than it is now, that must ignite collective impulses for all of us to commit to this DDM and deliver a legacy for future citizens of this District. Let’s commit to this as three levels of government and business.
In this regard, I thank everyone for setting aside time to attend this DDM Political Hub meeting.
Thank you.
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