In an effort to assist local ward committees to understand their role in enhancing public participation, local government has consulted a service provider to offer skills training for committee members.
In an effort to assist local ward committees to understand their role in enhancing public participation, local government has consulted a service provider to offer skills training for committee members.
Fifty-one ward committee members were divided in four different groups according to their educational background and were introduced to the new initiative at City Hall on Monday.
As an accredited programme, the five day training course is provided by Yahluka Management and Consulting services in accordance with the National Qualification Framework (NQF). Yahluka Management and Consulting Services provide skills training for local ward committees to help them improve their performance with regards to the community’s needs. According to Yahluka’s chief executive officer, Liziwe Ramncwana, "it is the municipality’s role to ensure that the ward committee members are trained.” She also said that the new training project is in line with the local government’s mandate to work with the community. She said that in order for the ward committee training to be successful they are expected to ”attend, participate and be committed to their work." Through this training initiative, Ramncwana says the ward committee will be able to assist the municipality and its people.
Although Makana Municipality has 12 wards there are only 51 ward members attending the training instead of the required 120. Council Speaker Rachel Madinda explained that the reason for having less members is because there are various wards that didn’t elect committee members when a general meeting was called early this year. She also added that the establishment of the committees that are not elected is still under way and that they will be trained in January by the same service provider. Committee members that are part of the initiative are from wards, 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8 and 9. The rest of the ward committees still have to be formed.
In terms of the training outcomes, some of the expectations of the programme include gaining knowledge of the IDP processes, understanding core municipal services and services delivery. At the end of the course the trainees wrote an exam where they were assessed on the knowledge they have gained. The assessment criteria includes group work, orals, assignments and role playing.
