Like all municipalities in South Africa, the Mogale City council had a backlog of systems and procedures that did not tally to new legislation, unresolved HR issues and operations that were duplicated, causing confusion for the officials.

The Mayoral Committee took a resolution to undertake a due diligence process, reviewing legal and financial aspects, HR, service delivery and overall organisational environment. There was a need to re-align the new mandate of developmental local government with the structure of council.

The executive mayoral system also put pressure on the re-alignment of functions and operations of the council. There were fulltime councillors whose responsibilities were outlined by law and therefore a need to outline convergence of executive power and administrative power.

The process of due diligence also called for a well thought-out strategy of communication within and outside of council. The launch of Dikgang tsa Mogale, which is a monthly publication, has gone a long way to be in touch with our local communities that do not receive the free weekly local newspaper, Krugersdorp News. The publication also affords us the opportunity to share widely all programmes that council embarks on.

There was also pressure from communities who wanted to see change in their surroundings. Inculcating a culture of consultation was not easy as the administration was not used to such high level of consultation. The drawing up of the IDP also meant stepping out of doing council business in the usual way and adopting new methods of conforming to legislation and opening up for community opinions in a big way.

The Executive Mayor embarked on a mayoral road show to solicit support from communities and reiterate their expressed needs to be incorporated into the IDP. This also assisted in the transformation process and reconfiguring of the council structure.

The office of the Executive Mayor embarked on a process of embracing designated groups, as these were located in his office. The first project was building up youth structures in each ward and finally culminating into the Mogale City Local Youth Forum.

All youth structures have a representative within the ward committees. The youth programmes are planned on a ward basis with each ward having its own budget and a global budget for all the 32 youth forums. A youth camp locality has been identified and will soon be purchased to pursuer developmental programmes for all youth of Mogale.

Next in the process was addressing issues of the elderly. A survey was done of all elderly people over 90 years of age and the Mayor held a birthday celebration for all of them at the end of 2001. The directorate of community services continues to provide soup kitchens to all the pension pay points on payday. The ward committees are in the process of establishing indigent elderly families so that they benefit from our indigence policy in relation to rebates for basic services. The office is also in the process of exploring ways of providing annual holiday for veterans so as to network them with other veterans in other provinces.

The disability desk has been set up at the directorate of community services. This is to provide for the addressing of disability issues throughout council and not to marginalise their issues. A policy on disability is being developed and will soon be passed by the Mayoral Committee.

The Mayor's office is in discussion with a local non-governmental organisation dealing with abused women and children to set up a shelter for such within Mogale City. A formal proposal will soon be presented to the Mayoral committee for consideration.

The office of the Executive Mayor is in the process of launching a historical society for Mogale City before the end of 2003. The society will seek to record the history of the area and of the country as a whole. Different speakers will be invited to give lectures and seminars on various topics that are of historical and cultural importance to the area.

We are hoping to extend the platform to local schools to partake in the society through attendance, debates and presenting papers on issues they consider to be of significance to youth within the area and the country.

Mogale City community has been through a period of political turmoil in the 1980s. The strife between hostel dwellers and local residents led to the loss of lives for both communities. Consultative meetings have been held with residents and hostel dwellers to hold cleansing ceremonies for the people of Kagiso 1 and Swaneville and build on the co-operation that the office has managed to build since taking office in 2000. This will also take place before the end of 2003 with prominent figures from Inkatha Freedom Party making up the guest list and conducting the ceremony with local politicians.

People development is one of our strategic objectives. It is clear from our loan scheme that the majority of our students are not performing to the optimum especially in their matric exams. For those who make the grade, there is not enough money for them to pursue further studies. We will soon launch a Mayoral Trust Fund whose objective amongst others, would be to begin to address the shortage of skills within Mogale by offering bursaries to all high schools within the area for students who are indigent and have performed exceptionally well.

The focus is to also to begin to encourage through the bursaries development of public sector officials who will then be afforded the opportunity to plant back their skills within the communities of the West Rand.

Integrated Development Plan (PDF format)