Africa-Press – Eswatini. The Minister of Housing and Urban Development, Appolo Maphalala, has ordered local governments to respect and be the solutions of Sibaya submissions.
The minister said this during his visit to Manzini, where he wanted to familiarise himself with the operations of the Municipal Council of Manzini and tour the city and Mhobodleni Township. In fact, the minister said there were four critical cross-cutting issues, which he wanted the municipality and other local governments to respect and they include fighting corruption and unemployment, improving service delivery and supporting or promoting investments.
He charged both the local government’s officials and councillors to curb corruption in the local authorities. He said one of the best ways to fight corruption started with the individual, who should tell himself/herself that he/she would not be involved in any corrupt activity. In terms of fighting the alarming rate of unemployment in the country (33.3 per cent, of which about 60 per cent is the youth), would be through community contracting – whereby local projects would be given to local people.
Appreciate
He said in the road infrastructural development projects, the contractors did this. He said local governments should appreciate that local people could do more for less. In that regard, he urged the local authorities to give people in communities as much work as they could. On the other hand, he said in terms of service delivery, they should be customer centred by giving the people the best service. He said by serving a person well, they should know that they might have avoided suicide as people were frustrated.
“If we fail to serve the nation well, we should know that we might be contributing to creating a violent society,” the minister said. Again, he said in terms of supporting investments, they should know that if organisations showed interest in investing in a city, they should know that they were endorsing their confidence in the leadership or management of that local authority.
Urged
Therefore, he urged the councillors and management to have a clear foresight, work towards a certain mark, be excellent in their operations and move at high speed. He also charged them to lead the city well, without noise. He said by so doing, in no time the city would be known worldwide by people who would want to visit it or invest.
“You should be able to see opportunities from afar,” the minister said.
He said they should sort issues out in the chambers so that when they went out to work, there would be no noise. He added that they should develop the city, but with order. Moreover, he said cities and towns should digitalise services and programmes. For example, he said most banks had gone digital and that had decreased the number of people who visited the financial institutions.
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