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the Directorate of Economic Development and Planning. ICT in
terms of local government is handled by the Directorate of Economic
Development and Planning. As highlighted in SALGA’s 2009 State
of ICT in Local Government report, modern cities in this new social
and economic environment are reassessing their roles and capacities
in relation to the emerging new knowledge-based economy and the
needs of their citizens. To this end, towns and villages are able to
access a variety of Information and Communication Technologies to
better prepare citizens to compete in the new economy and aid in
the delivery of public services, support enterprise development and
enhance the quality of life in their communities. The application of
ICTs therefore lies both within good governance as well as within the
field of socio-economic development, and legislative and political
measures are often required to facilitate or enable application of ICTs,
especially in the successful delivery of e-Government services. At the
2010 SALGA National Members Assembly, it was recognised that ICTs
should be better leveraged to enable effective administration, service
delivery and socio-economic development and are therefore integral to
the functioning of any well run municipality. Raising the political and
actual profile of ICT within local authorities, down to the community
level, was given a high priority and SALGA is to be mandated and
capacitated to be an effective coordinator and champion in driving for
more effective use of ICTs for and in local government. The focus of
ICT in the directorate falls within four broad critical focus areas:
• Internal ICT systems, processes and infrastructure.
• Broadband connectivity and access.
• e-Government and provision of services.
• Awareness of ICTs and the capacity of communities to engage
and participate.
An action plan for SALGA’s ICT agenda was drafted, highlighting the
implementation of four flagships projects, namely: a Department of
Communications Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on e-Skills,
the activation of the ICT Practitioners Network, the formation of
a SALGA National ICT Local Government event and a study on the
feasibility of SALGA forming an ICT accreditation service. Broadly, the
ICT project is intended to provide support to municipalities to access
information technology more conveniently, with the cost benefit aiding
in the improvement of local government business processes through
service delivery in areas such as debtor management, customer
service, information distribution and revenue collection. SALGA
Northern Cape and Mpumalanga were identified as e-skilling pilot
provinces and a one-day e-skilling workshop was held on 01 June
2011 for five municipalities from Northern Cape Province, namely
Gasegonyana, Emthanjeni, Sol Plaatje, NamaKhoi and Khara Hais.
The workshop gave the municipalities an opportunity to present local
government challenges and contribute significantly to the National
e-Skills Plan of Action, as well as to formulate the key actions required
to progress e-skills in the region.
Position paper on Economic Development and Planning
SALGA Eastern Cape identified the municipalities not having land
use management and zoning plans, spatial development frameworks
(SD)’s, land reform and settlement plans (LRSPs) and housing
development plans and will hold workshops for key departments in
order to support municipalities in this regard over the next financial
year. SALGA Eastern Cape also participated in a local economic
development (LED) maturity assessment workshop and hosted a LED
roundtable to share the successes and failures of the provincial LED
activities so as to improve coordination of initiatives and contribute
to the stimulation of local economies and poverty alleviation in the
province. SALGA North West convened and facilitated two provincial
LED position paper sessions to solicit inputs and comments from all
stakeholders (submitted in 2010), and also convened and participated
in LED maturity assessment workshops to aid municipalities in
developing their state of maturity in terms of LED good practice and
benchmarking. Further, a provincial desktop assessment study on
spatial planning and land-use management capacity and functionality
was conducted with municipal town planning units, revealing that
only ten of the 24 provincial municipalities possessed functional town
planning units. A Comprehensive Rural Development Programme
(CRDP) working session was then convened to assist municipalities
on the comprehension of the programme and the different financial
and technical avenues available.
Providing support for the development of credible LED strategies
SALGA Free State conducted an analysis of LED strategies in the
province as well as the implementation of such in the municipalities,
with leading practices being identified and documented as case
studies to assist municipalities in improving the development of
credible future LED strategies. These case studies will empower
municipalities to draft their LED strategies in line with the development
goals of the integrated development plan (IDP) of the current cycle
to create growth and employment creation in the province. In this
regard, SALGA Limpopo facilitated the partnering of institutions of
higher learning with participating municipalities in the province.
After development of an implementation plan and the submission
of a proposal for Maruleng Municipality, a fresh-produce market
was established and jobs created globally for market farmers.
Additionally, Vhembe District Municipality was partnered with Rajkot
District (Gondal Local Municipality in Gujurat, India) and enabled job
creation through rural development focused primarily on agriculture.
SALGA Mpumalanga conducted an analysis of LED strategies and
implementation in member municipalities, holding a number of
meetings with Emakhazeni, Emalahleni, Dr JS Moroka and Nkangala
Municipalities on 18 Feb 2011. Letters of advice were disseminated to
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