Pretoria - Speaker of the Tshwane Council Dr Murunwa Makwarela has reiterated the importance of ushering in ward committees, saying that the structures were useful in facilitating service delivery on the ground.
His remarks were made after the approval of the revised ward committees’ draft by-law for promulgation in October.
The draft by-law essentially paved the way for the installation of ward committees, which have been absent in the metro for the past 10 years.
Makwarela said the City was rolling out ward committees in all 107 wards.
“For the last two political terms the ward committees, which are quite essential and close to service delivery, were absent,” he said.
He also touched on the need to empower committees once they were in place.
“We believe that we will do what is necessary to ensure that ward committees are capacitated. Other than being a coalition government, the City is composed of ward councillors that come from different political parties. So, it’s not so much about the political issues, it’s about the representation of our people on the ground.”
Ward committees consisted of a ward councillor and no more than 10 people from the ward, who could voluntarily serve for a five-year term to encourage the participation of the community in municipal affairs.
Their decade-long absence in Tshwane was after the 2014 ruling by the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, which nullified the ward committee elections of 2012 under the then administration.
The ruling followed a legal challenge by the DA, which questioned the constitutionality of the committee elections on the grounds that they excluded the participation of members of the public.
The process for correcting the unconstitutionality of the by-law was set in motion some years back, but it was delayed on several occasions.
For example, on March 30, 2017, the draft ward committees by-law was presented to the council by the Office of the Speaker for approval after public participation processes.
In 2018 the municipality was on the verge of hosting the ward committees elections when the then speaker, Katlego Mathebe, was forced to call off the process after it was discovered that the amended by-law risked excluding other members of the public from participating in the ward committee elections.
The postponement of the elections, which had already been advertised, was said to have cost the municipality at least R4 million.
The ongoing election process will take place under the leadership and guidance of the chairperson of the electoral committee, Alderman Dana Wannenburg.
Pretoria News