Joburg ‘has a lot to teach’

Municipalities across the country have a lot to learn from the City of Johannesburg, according to the Mbombela Local Municipality executive mayor, Lassy Chiwayo.

Chiwayo led a delegation of Mbombela's mayoral committee members and portfolio managers to the city in a knowledge exchange visit, hosted by the Johannesburg Innovation and Knowledge Exchange, or Jike.

"Joburg is indeed a world-class city and we're looking forward to tapping into its experiences," he said.

Mbombela is in Mpumalanga province, to Joburg's east and incorporates the towns of White River and Nelspruit.

Johannesburg Executive Mayor Amos Masondo welcomed the visitors and had a protracted discussion with Chiwayo about local governance. "There are things that we pride ourselves on and that we can share with other municipalities," he said. "We are looking at greater things resulting from this interaction."

Chiwayo pointed out that he would send administrative teams from various council departments to gather more knowledge from Joburg, which had relevant lessons for Mbombela and other municipalities in South Africa and Africa. Learning from Joburg would help speed up service delivery.

"The City is a great eye-opener," he said. "We don't need to go abroad [to see how local government is run]. Joburg has relevant lessons for us."

Separation of power
In particular, the Mbombela delegation was impressed by Johannesburg's separation of power governance strategy. It allows to City to demarcate clearly the mandates of the political executive and the legislative functions of local government.

Masondo said the strategy played a critical role in helping execute the objectives of the City as mandated by the Constitution. It improved the relationship between councillors and administrators and allowed for accountability.

A pilot programme that has also been implemented by Emfuleni Local Municipality in the Vaal, Masondo announced that the Gauteng provincial government was busy introducing the separation of powers provincially.

"Our sense is that it needs to be rolled out in the province," said Johannesburg's City manager, Mavela Dlamini.

The strategy merges the Offices of the executive mayor and City manager to improve political and administrative interaction. It positions the City manager as the head of the Office of the Executive Mayor.

Read more: http://www.joburg.org.za/content/view/4347/266/#ixzz0RiyhB4Kr