Inside CoGTA Magazine

INSIDECOGTA Internal Newsletter NOVEMBER /1

NDMC ON DISASTER RISK REDUCTION - pg 11

DDM OUTREACH - pg 6

PRESIDENCY ON MALUTIA-PHOFUNG MUNICIPALITY SERVICE DELIVERY - pg 10

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CONTENTS CONTENTS

VISION Service excellence for improving lives through cooperative governance.

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Recent appointments

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Birthdays

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Minister Dlamini Zuma assesses DDM

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CWP to strengthen support to Early Childhood Development sector

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Diversity in the workplace

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Deputy President Mabuza convenes intervention meeting on Maluti-APhofung

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NDMC reflects on SA disaster risk reduction plans

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SA urban festival

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Meet the Directorate of Information and Database Management

MISSION

To lead the Cooperative Governance system through the District Development Model in support of integrated service delivery for a better life for all in South Africa.

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VALUES

Commitment to public service.

Integrity and dedication to fighting corruption.

A hands-on approach to dealing with local challenges.

Public participation and people centred approach.

Professionalism and goal orientation.

Passion to serve.

Excellence and accountability.

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RECENT APPOINTMENTS Mr PU Pretorius Rank: DDG: Corporate Services Branch: Corporate Services Start date: 1 December 2020

Mr DB Mathunjwa Rank - CFO Chief Directorate: Finance Start date 1 November 2020

Mr CZ Mncwabe Rank: CD - Office of the DG Branch: Office of the DG Start date: 1 November 2020

Mr V Tshikovhi Ms KM Fata Rank: Administrative Assistant Rank: DD - Indigent Register Management, Monitoring Directorate: Indigent Register and Reporting Management, Monitoring Start date: 1 October 2020 and Reporting Start date: 1 October 2020

Ms NA Motheogane Rank: Senior State Accountant Branch: Finance Start date: 7 July 2020

Mr B Mputle Rank: Administration Clerk Branch: Finance Start date: 8 July 2020

Ms WM Ledwaba Rank: Senior State Accountant Branch: Finance Start date: 6 July 2020

Ms PT Sithole Rank: Director: Financial Accounting Services Branch: Finance Start date: 1 July 2020

Ms NLP Mnguni Rank: Senior State Accountant Branch: CWP Start date: 23 June 2020

Ms NLP Mnguni Rank - Senior State Accountant Branch: CWP Start date: 23 June 2020

Ms RR Rampai Rank: Senior Internal Auditor Chief Directorate: Internal Audit Start date: 1 April 2020

Mr N Mukwevho Rank: Director - Financial Accounting Services Branch: Finance Start date: 1 April 2020

Mr NM Mahlangu Rank: DD Internal Control Branch: Finance Start date: 1 May 2020

Mr ML Sigaba Rank: CD - Municipal Audit Outcomes and Revenue Management Branch: Institutional Development Start date: 23 March 2020

Mr TJ Lengoabala Rank: DD: Fire Services Branch: NDMC Start date: 1 December 2020

PICTURES FROM EMPLOYEES ORIANTATION PROGRAMME

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY! MS SINDI KHUMALO 29/11 MR BUSHY NDHLOVU 29/11 MS NQOBILE BEMBE 30/11 MS KHOLOFELO SEPURU 30/11 MS LYNETTE KOMANA 30/11 Mr Mphumzi Booi 01/12 Mr Jurgens Dyssel 03/12 Ms Morongwa Moreroa 03/12 Mr Sfiso Themba 06/12 Ms Dikeledi Khoza 08/12 Mr Manyedi Nkashe 08/12 Ms Soreta Odendaal 09/12 Ms Dineo Malepe 11/12 Mr Bishop Seroka 15/12 Ms Amanda Bunu 17/12 Ms Thandi Goxo 18/12 Ms Mpone Motsamai 18/12 Mr Loyiso Ncoko 23/12 Mr Sonwabile Nkayitshana 24/12 Ms Zukiswa Dano 25/12 Mr Mmapaka Tau 25/12 Mr Tebogo Motlashuping 27/12 Ms Eveline Mathobela 28/12 Ms Telela Socikwa 28/12 Mr Silas Makobe 29/12 Ms Mmabatho Ledwaba 31/12 Ms Maria Mahlobogoane 31/12

FAREWELL MESSAGE FROM MS MARIE WEGE you personally and others telephonically. A thank you to colleagues who phoned me to say goodbye.

About two years after I joined this department, the then CFO asked me “what do you want to be your legacy one day” and my answer was that I hope I would have touched the lives and hearts of my family, friends and colleagues with love. Thus to all my COGTA family, friends and colleagues, I hope I have done just that.

It was great to work with all of you and walk this journey. Some of you walked the whole 22 year journey with me, some came later, but all of you touched my heart and I will miss you all. I loved working with you and I always loved my work.

My career in government started in 1979 in the Department of Labour when I was a mere 22-year old.

I have now reached the age where I want to take life easy and spend time with my husband and especially my grandson, Joshua, whom a lot of my family in CoGTA knows and love as much as I love him.

Dear family, friends and colleagues I have reached the end of my 22-year journey in this department. I am grateful that I could greet some of

I will not be gone forever, as I will definitely come and visit you. I have made a lot of friends during the years and will miss you all dearly.

Farewell to all of you and may the grace of God be with you always.

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MINISTER DLAMINI ZUMA ASSESSES DDM PROGRESS - By Lerato Makoko

During October and November 2020, Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma undertook extensive working visits to the Waterberg, O.R Tambo, Harry Gwala, ILembe Districts and eThekwini Metro municipalities respectively in line with the CoGTA mandate to perform oversight and assess progress on the implementation of the District Development Model (DDM) and economic reconstruction and recovery plan whilst prioritising the COVID-19 and GBVF response plans.

stakeholder partnerships among government, business sector, traditional leaders, civil society organisations and communities at large.

Minister’s recent visits also gave practical expression to section 154 of the constitution, which enjoins national and provincial government to support and strengthen the capacity of municipalities to be able to perform their functions.

She also received reports on the state of municipalities and challenged the districts to reimagine their communities and envision where they would like to see their districts in the next 25 years, leveraging on their unique endowments.

The DDM is an “all of government” approach aimed at achieving the constitutional goal of cooperative governance through the strengthening of intergovernmental coordination in the planning, budgeting and implementation of government programmes.

She emphasised that to improve people’s quality of life, every district must be moulded into a place that is pleasant for all to live in and carry out the mandate of serving the people and attract investors.

Some of the milestones achieved in the institutionalisation of the DDM includes the development of comprehensive profiles for all the 52 district spaces and introduction of the DDM Hubs for the pilot sites as part of capacity building, particularly with critical skills and shared services.

The next milestones in this progressive trajectory will be to establish DDM Hubs in all district spaces to facilitate the development of ‘One Plans’..

The DDM is premised on active communitywide participation and social compacting through

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During the minister’s visit, the districts highlighted issues pertaining to unemployment, poverty, gender-based violence, lack of skills, COVID-19, poor infrastructure and inequality as some of the immediate challenges that require intergovernmental attention.

The minister further encouraged the municipalities to break down their long-term goal into short-term plans in order to track implementation and ensure success, In the discussions with the minister, stakeholders proposed assessment of the state’s potential and capabilities so they could be harnessed towards catalytic projects which would contribute to the overall socio-economic development of all municipalities.

Borrowing from the words of a Nigerian poet Ben Okri to encourage municipalities, Minister Dlamini Zuma said: “We can re-dream this world and make the dream come real.”

CWP TO STRENGTHEN SUPPORT TO EARLY CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT SECTOR - By Nkanyiso Ndadane

The Community Work Programme (CWP) is looking at improving its support and contribution to the Early Childhood Development sector where the programme is working with various organisations to support the learning and development of children in poor communities.

The CWP management hosted a stakeholders’ symposium during this month of November 2020 to explore ways in which CWP partners in the Early Childhood Development sector could optimize their work in line with the principles of the programme and Department of Social Development’s Early Childhood policy.

The StatsSA labour Force Survey indicates that South African economy lost about 2,2 million jobs in the second quarter of 2020.

The CWP seeks to break the cycle of poverty by investing in young children’s development through various interventions by the programme’s participants in the Early Childhood Development space.

The programme’s participants are making meaningful contribution to the Early Childhood Development by among others establishing and maintaining food gardens in early childhood centers to cater for children’s nutritional needs.

South Africa is battling with child poverty where, according to StatsSA 2015 report, 60% of children between the ages of 0-4 experience multidimensional poverty such as deprivation of at least three of the necessities such as health; housing; nutrition; protection; education; information; water and sanitation.

In some CWP sites, participants carry out maintenance work, house chores and teacher assistant services in the early childhood centres.

The report notes that: “Child poverty and deprivation hinders the physical, psychological and social development of a child. Children who experience multidimensional poverty will miss out on key aspects of their life which usually help them develop and reach their full potential.”

The Department of Social Development, a key sector department partner, shared insight on how the department was working with the CWP programme on the ground to achieve the objectives of government’s Early Childhood Development Policy.

It is widely accepted that the environment and the conditions where children grow up affect their development and their future. With the current high unemployment rate, exacerbated by the current COVID-19 job losses, more and more children will loose access to many necessities.

The recent symposium was hosted to reflect on the CWP’s contribution to the early childhood space and look at the ways to align it with the values of the programme and incorporate in the new CWP model.

The department has conducted a number of CWP orientation programme among its social workers and other officials to promote the understanding of the programme and create synergies on the ground.

The department’s orientation programme has also reached out to CWP participants to capacitate them about the early childhood development.

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I am responsible...

PROTECT SOUTH AFRICA

Do the right thing – Pay your Municipal Services Your municipality needs your support as a responsible citizen to improve service delivery. #PayingIsCaring

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DIVERSITY IN THE WORKPLACE - By Eva Mahlokweng

Diversity is acknowledging, understanding, accepting, and valuing differences among people on the basis of age, class, race, ethnicity, gender, disabilities and other areas. Achieving diversity at work is a comprehensive process of creating a work environment that includes everyone.

Transformation agenda advocates for inclusion of all people with all their diversity. Organisations, profit and non-profit, should become diversified to remain inclusive and compliant with the transformation agenda.

They need to embrace diversity and look for ways to become inclusive organisations because diversity has the potential to yield greater work productivity and competitive advantage.

Diversity in the workplace is beneficial to both employers and employees. It creates a fair and safe environment where everyone has access to opportunities and offers a pool of people with different backgrounds, experiences, expectations, opinions and preferences.

These are beneficial in generating strategies and practices to help the organisation become a leader in its industry or sector.

In the month of October, South Africa focused on people with disabilities as a way of creating awareness about the challenges and stigma that they face everyday.

The goal is to remove the barriers and improve the quality of life of people living with disabilities. This

can only be achieved through concerted efforts and concrete action by everyone.

Understanding disability is an important step to remove the stigma and encourage socially inclusive environment People incur a disability as a consequence of an impairment that may be physical, cognitive, mental, sensory, emotional, developmental, or a combination of these. The impairment may be present from birth or occur during a person’s lifetime.

Diversity in the context of disability means understanding the uniqueness of the person with disability and embrace his or her difference.

As part of embracing diversity in the context of disability, the international community celebrate disability on the International Day of Persons with Disabilities which is held on 3 December. South Africa celebrates diversity the whole month of November as a build up to this day.

The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) recognises the barriers that people with a disability may face in realizing their rights in society. The rights under all human rights treaties apply to everyone, including people with disability. However, the CRPD applies human rights in the context of people with disability, specifically.

South Africa is a signatory to the core international human rights treaties. The rights of people with disability are contained in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).

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DEPUTY PRESIDENT MABUZA CONVENES INTERVENTION MEETING ON MALUTI-APHOFUNG - By The Presidency

Deputy President David Mabuza convened a meeting on the service delivery intervention in Malutia-Phofung Local Municipality on 27 November 2020.

The meeting follows commitments made by the deputy president during the oral replies to the National Council of Provinces on 4 November 2020 and subsequently to the National Assembly on 26 November 2020.

Deputy President Mabuza convened the meeting as an intervention to resolve the impasse between Maluti-a-Phofung Local Municipality and Eskom, regarding outstanding debt owed by the municipality to the utility.

This rising debt, has led to disruption of electricity supply and provision of other basic services, including water provision.

While responding to a question on service delivery challenges in QwaQwa, Deputy President made an undertaking to meet with the Free State Province, the municipality and Eskom to facilitate a resolution to the current challenge of outstanding debt that has impacted on sustainable delivery of services in Maluti-a-Phofung.

The disruption of services had led to recurring

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protests by residents over a period of time.

In responding in the National Assembly, Deputy President Mabuza said “We fully support Eskom’s efforts to collect revenue by following its credit control measures, and to ensure that organs of state do expedite payment of outstanding debts owed to Eskom, and that they settle all outstanding debts to municipalities.”

In taking the process forward, a technical task team comprising of national government departments, the Free State Office of the Premier and the Free State Departments of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs was immediately set up to process proposals by all parties.

The meeting agreed to hold a follow-up meeting on 04 December 2020 to further discuss proposals made by the parties towards a sustainable solution to the current challenge of rising debt.

At this meeting, Deputy President Mabuza was joined by the Minister Pravin Gordhan of Public Enterprises, Deputy Minister Parks Tau of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Premier Sisa Ntombela and MEC Thembeni Nxangisa of CoGTA in the Free State Province, as well as the Chief Executive Officer of Eskom, Mr Andre De Ruyter.

NDMC REFLECTS ON SA’S DISASTER RISK REDUCTION PLANS - By Nkanyiso Ndadane

Five years ago, the Department of Cooperative Governance led the South African delegation to the United Nations’ world conference on disaster risk reduction in Sendai city, Japan, where the government committed to the international priorities to substantially reduce disaster risk.

This month of November 2020, the department hosted a two-day workshop to reflect on South Africa’s performance on the Sendai commitments as part of the annual International Day for Disaster Reduction (IDDR) commemoration.

The commemoration is held annually in October to create awareness about disaster risk and highlight what governments around the world and their stakeholders are doing to mitigate disasters and minimize the impact of disasters when they happen.

South Africa is prone to a number of disasters which may results to loss of lives and destruction to public infrastructure when they happen. According to the Fire Prevention Association of Southern Africa, the 5283 informal settlement fire outbreak recorded in the 2016/17 financial year cost South Africa R179 513 324.

However, the country is also exposed to a number of other disasters or hazards such as floods, droughts, fires, dieses outbreak and severe storms. The National Disaster Management Centre was established in the department to specialize in areas of disaster management and coordinate the efforts of different stakeholders involved in the disaster management.

This puts the department at the centre of the country’s disaster risk reduction which involves establishing disaster management structures, policies and plans to prepare South Africa and build its rapid response system.

The IDDR exposes South Africa to different disaster risk mitigation and reduction strategies that other countries around the world are pursuing to prevent their community exposure and loss of lives.

All these are done in line with the Sendai commitments which identified four disaster management priorities for the United Nations member countries like South Africa.

These four commitments which have been broken down into seven targets are the: •

Understanding of the disaster risk.

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Strengthening disaster manage disaster risk.

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Investing in disaster reduction for resilience.

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Enhancement of the disaster preparedness for effective response.

risk

governance

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In the past five years since the introduction of the Sendai commitments and the remaining two years, countries of the world are focusing on integrating the commitments with their national strategies.

The 2020 IDDR is dedicated to one of the targets which is to increase the number of countries with national and local disaster risk reduction strategies.

The year 2021 and 2022 will be focusing on the two remaining Sendai commitments targets: •

2021 - Implementation of the Sendai Framework through international cooperation and sustainable support by 2030.

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2022 – Increasing access to multi-hazard early warning systems and disaster risk information and assessments by 2030.

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- By Stefanie Chetty

The department joined hands with various stakeholders in the urban development space to host the Urban Festival 2020 which ran the whole month of October.

• Re-Shaping our Cities

The partners comprised of South African Cities Network (SACN), Civic Tech Innovation Network (CTIN), Open Cities Lab (OCL), WITS Journalism and Media Lab (JAMLAB), Our Future Cities (OFC), ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability, and others.

• Empowering Action

Seventy-eight virtual events, from book launches, to panel discussions to Instagram takeovers were hosted by the partners who responded to the organisers’ ‘open call’ to encourage participation by other institution with something to showcase as a celebration of urban life.

Three –thousand and seven hundred people around the world took part in the Urban Festival events themed: “Empowering the Civic,” and focused on inclusivity, accessibility and digital innovation.

This was the first event of its kind in South Africa and good platform to promote the department’s Integrated Urban Development Framework (IUDF) programme which hosted four weekly virtual workshops.

The ‘My IUDF’ discussion sessions focused on a range of voices from society who discussed these weekly themes:

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• City Storytellers • Government as a Partner More information on each My IUDF Session would be found under www.urbanfestival.co It was a privilege to be a panelist and a facilitator on some sessions which amplified the key messaging that government is inclusive and involves all society in the day to day work of government.

The Urban Festival harnessed many amazing talents, ideas, arts and crafts from innovative individuals whom make a difference in society but are not given platforms to showcase their creativity.

It brought on a call to strengthen partnerships and encourage active participation with society and empower communities, enabling their voices to be activated.

One of the highlights of My IUDF sessions were the dominant community voices that the sessions were able to give a platform to share their thoughts with South Africa and the world.

The IUDF team was also able to partnered with Sibikwa Arts and Culture and the World Resource Institute through formal MOUs to further enhance the implementation vision of the IUDF.

MEET THE DIRECTORATE OF INFORMATION AND DATABASE MANAGEMENT - By Shanti-Gita Cotzer & Kelebogile Mosimege The Information and Database Management Unit (IDM) falls under the Chief Directorate of Performance Monitoring in the Local Government Support and Interventions Management branch. Charged with the responsibility to manage knowledge resources of the department, the unit has participated in various knowledge management platforms such as the South African Cities Network Knowledge Management Reference Group.

The Reference Group allows knowledge management practitioners from the Metros to collaborate and exchange valuable information.

The IDM has also taken part in other knowledge management activities such as the Ekurhuleni Knowledge Champions Workshop to learn and share knowledge, information and experience.

The unit is also a P-member of the SA KM standards group led by the SABS. The P-membership means that the unit is actively involved in the development of KM standards, incorporating 4th IR for SA.

The Unit is spearheading the establishment of a Local Government Knowledge Exchange Forum which will allow for key stakeholders to convene to discuss and plan around how to improve local government, especially through exchanging knowledge and information.

The IDM Unit has also supported the units of the department through the showcasing of their various projects. Relevant sites are visited to conduct interview stakeholders, take photographs and record good practices for future learning.

Some of these projects include: •

Documentation of Community projects

Msogwaba

Traditional

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City of Cape Town knowledge sharing visit

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PG Bison Business Adopt a Municipality Project

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Municipal Institute of Learning

The Directorate of Information and Database Management at Work

Ms Kelebogile Mosimege from IDM presenting at the KM Champions Forum in Ekurhuleni.

Ms Maphuti Leta, IDM Senior Manager presenting at a KM event.

PG Bison Business Adopt a Municipality project. A project that IDM is involved in as part of the Municipal Learning Exchange with the eThekwini municipality.

SUPPORT YOU CAN GET FROM IDM:

IDM CONTACT DETAILS

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Developing corporate documents and presentations.

Documenting and highlighting projects.

Event management Information and knowledge management Management of the Business Centre at events Management of presentations and documents at events

Central email: KM@Cogta.gov.za Ms Dineo Malepe : DineoMa@cogta.gov.za or Tel: 012 334 0996

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