"Khawuleza" the spirit of speeding service delivery

By: Emmaculate Cindi

Since the launch of District Development Model (DDM) by president Cyril Ramaphosa in October 2019 in the Waterberg District, Premier of Limpopo Stanley Mathabatha has led the roll out of the programme, the latest being in Vhembe district at Makhuvha stadium.

The model seeks to intergrade resource from business sector such as Mining, Agriculture and Tourism to strengthen inter sphere planning and budgeting for the enhancement of service delivery that identified loopholes to be corrected.

DDM seeks to produce district socio economic profiles, the profiles are intended to identify needs which will be addressed by combined budget and Integrated Development Plan (IDP) of the district. Moreover the model aims to strengthen inter sphere planning and budgeting for impactful service delivery in cooperating private sector and civil society contribution.

Partnership between government and business sector will address working in muteness of stakeholders which has made planning and monitoring of government programmes difficult and resulted in poor service delivery. With the gap identified, the model is aimed at improving the coherence and impact of government service delivery.

“Through this model, we will see greater and increased partnership, each district plan will ensure that national priorities such as economic growth and employment, improvements to living conditions, fight against crime and corruption and better education outcomes are attended to in the locality concerned” said Mathabatha

The model foundation phase will be profiling the needs and analysing service delivery, infrastructure, business and investment opportunity in the area to allow economic growth. The DDM will ensure that each district plan is developed with the inputs of the concerned communities.

Mathabatha said that district by district approach to development is exactly what South Africa has been waiting for as each district has its own competitive advantages and its own unique challenges.

Currently the Vhembe district is faced with high rate of unemployment and skills development, access to housing and primary health care amongst others which will be addressed by the implementation of the DDM.

Even though the district is faced with difficulties, it is known for its rich agricultural and mining activities which will be used as a focused attention sectors.  Central to the  District Development Model is the Musina Makhado Special Economic Zone (SEZ) which is set to create jobs and boost the local economy.

During his State of  the Province Address (SOPA) the Premier said the SEZ  has attracted an additional investment commitment of  6.1 billion US dollars which will make the number of projected jobs to be created in  Musina-Makhado SEZ project has since being revised from 21 000 to 26 000.