by Gugu Mgwebi

Community Support Centres

Buffalo City Municipality (BCM) recently started setting up community support centres.
These began with housing delivery, but BCM extended the focus and broadened the concept by introducing the aspect of customer-care activities.

Funded by the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA), the main objectives of the community support centres are mainly to create a meeting place for the communities, bring the community closer to the government, improve direct communication with local communities and to allow interaction, as well as to integrate government services (local, provincial and national).

The functions of the community support centres include providing a multitude of services housing support, engineering support, social service support and finance service support to communities. The centres are also involved in the provision of information and community awareness campaigns for projects around HIV\Aids, training for internal and external stakeholders, hosting municipal open days and events as well as the provision of tourist information.

The Mdantsane and Gompo areas still await the official opening of their community support centres.
The success of the first official community support centre by BCM was achieved on Saturday, 20 October, in King William’s Town. Among others in attendance were Executive Mayor Zintle Peter and municipal manager Gaster Sharpley, as well as local councillors and representatives from the Umsobomvu Youth Fund. Through the opening of the CSC the communities of KWT will have a platform to explore opportunities and become more informed about government and to take part in government plans and decisions. The CSC in KWT is attached to the civic centre which houses services such as the youth advisory desk (funded by Umsobomvu), a disabled desk, a customer-care office, an HIV\Aids desk, a gender and support desk, a computer room and an information office.

The success and efficacy of the community support centres will in part depend on how local communities interact with and engage with the information provided through such centres. Hopefully the existence of such centres will be publicised adequately in order to ensure that as many people as possible make use of them.

Mayoral Imbizo

One of the innovative ways through which BCM has been trying to give effect to the principle of public participation has been through the organisation of regular meetings (imbizos) between the mayor and the municipal stakeholders, mainly ordinary members of the public. Imbizos have been used to encourage local residents to become more involved in government developmental work.

The programme was established in 2006 with the aim of providing a platform for residents to take part in developmental local government and participate in the City Development Strategy which is a 20-year vision to boost the economy of Buffalo City. The two-week imbizo programme involved Executive Mayor Zintle Peter addressing 18 public gatherings, as well as reporting back on the BCM’s progress, answering questions and clarifying issues raised by members of the public.

During the launch of the imbizo programme at the Mdantsane stadium on 28 October, challenges highlighted included the small revenue base, lack of a long-term development strategy, low economic growth coupled with high levels of unemployment and poverty, lack of transport, lack of social service economic opportunities and natural resources that are threatened by unsustainable use.

As part of the strategies for improving Buffalo City it was suggested that the municipality should maintain municipal infrastructure and assets to guard against degeneration, improve the city’s connections worldwide, enlarge and deepen the port, and also improve road, rail and air links with Gauteng.

The construction of a power sub-station that is to be completed in mid-2008 to assist in the improvement of electric supply has been hailed as one of the positive outcomes of the imbizos.
Through these gatherings, it is hoped that communication will be improved. However, as in the case of community support centres, communities have to be proactive and willing to actively engage in the development processes.

BCM must, however, continue ensuring that these initiatives remain meaningful by facilitating actual public participation rather than futile make-believe exercises that could further alienate the public from government.

The Local Government Transformer Dec 2007/Jan 2008