08 January 2009

Introduction
On behalf of the people of Mogale City, we want to commence by passing our condolences to the family of the city's luminous progenitor, Chief Mogale Wa Mogale on the loss of his granddaughter, Ms Mamonageng Lydia Mogale (1914-2010) who was laid to rest on the 9th January 2009. It is a sad way to start a year and so have many around the city who lost loved ones so early in the year have attested. We wish you strength during these trying times.

On the 8th January 2010, the President of South Africa and of the ANC, the ruling party, Jacob Zuma elaborated a programme for the year that informs how we as public representatives and public servants shall do our work this year. Late in the first quarter of this year we will unveil our city's priorities for the year.

Clean Audit
We said just recently, that 2009 was an eventful year for us. Our municipality closed the year after receiving a glowing audit report from the Auditor-General. Our efforts to improve our governance systems are finally paying off. We will step up our Pioneering a Clean Audit in Gauteng Campaign as part of supporting the COGTA goal of achieving clean audits across all municipalities by 2014.

Reopening of Schools
We envisage that the last enrolment of our children in our schools has seen significant improvement in numbers, because we certainly do not want to see any children of school-going age loiter our streets. New entrants into the schooling system should be handled with the utmost discretion as they try and navigate this new terrain.

We are more than elated that our schools and their charges performed so well this past year. We wish those who will go to tertiary institutions all the best. The municipality will continue to offer assistance in bursaries to help them succeed. Their horizons will be more than expanded and we hope that they will on completion of their studies enthusiastically join us in our effort to create A Better Life For All.

Several of our schools will celebrate 50 years or more of existence, and we encourage all residents to join our municipality's councillors, officials and others in making these celebrations memorable. These celebrations must emphasize the powerful, decisive and positive role of education in the formation of responsible adults of our children. As the old saying goes, education is the key to success.

Crime Prevention
We also are raising the bar in crime prevention and by-law enforcement and have since acquired a new fleet for our public safety department. We want to commend our drivers in the city since our Arrive Alive Campaign reports show zero percent fatalities in our area. We must work together to ensure that we improve and sustain this good road behaviour by pedestrians and drivers throughout the entire year. We also urge communities to help the institution by jealously guarding against municipal infrastructure being vandalised by anyone. Anyone who destroys government property must be made aware that they are waging a battle against the people themselves because it is their property.

Rural Development
As we launched the Thusong Multipurpose Centre in Muldersdrift last year, we laid stress on the fact that we will do all in our power to ensure that we consistently mainstream rural development in our strategy. This year will see us outline more plans about how we will make lives of our rural communities as better as that of their urban counterparts. Gone are the days when these areas are treated as an after-thought, or worse, as rhetoric in feel-good-speeches on development.

Accelerated Service Delivery
We have increased the pace of service delivery across the city. Over the past months, our residents will have noticed that there has been increased activity around several areas like cleaning of our streets, our parks and refuse removal. We will continue to look at ways of creating quality jobs for our people so that accelerated service delivery of our city is undergirded by a good cohort of committed public servants who uphold the Batho Pele Principles.

2010 FIFA World Cup
Our endeavour to position our city as the Ultimate Fan City for the 2010 FIFA World Cup has seen us play a fine role during the FIFA Confederations Cup in 2009. We will raise our drive to support host cities nearer to us, namely Rustenburg; Tshwane and Johannesburg. We will place emphasis on a local marketing drive to raise the buzz that has engulfed the entire continent about this African World Cup. We will draw the world to our tourist offerings and ensure that those who visit us this year do make return trips to our lovely city. Citizens of the world must know that a return to the City of Human Origin is coming back to their home away from home. Let us support Bafana Bafana and wear our country's colours every Friday.

Conclusion
We wish all Mogale City residents a prosperous 2010.