17 May 2021

The proposed national decentralisation policy is not about tribal territories but the empowerment of local government structures.

This was said by Assistant Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Mr Kgotla Autlwetse during a consultative meeting with Nata/Gweta leadership recently.

He said contrary to misconceptions that had factored tribal territories into the idea of making the structures autonomous,  the intention was to enable councils to carry out their daily business without any impediments.

Mr Autlwetse pointed out that many councils failed to create own income earning strategies due to reliance on the annual Revenue Support Grant from central government.

He said the dependence had also resulted in delivery failure.

Under the proposed policy, Mr Autlwetse said, the grant would be performance based.

Mr Autlwetse said sub district councils were meant to decongest district councils by making services easily accessible.

With villages experiencing population increase, he said the status quo could not remain.

Sub-districts needed to be equipped to enable them to make and run their own budgets instead of the current arrangement where they depended on the main district council.

The status quo had not served the public well and had resulted in complaints of development stagnation and inadequate service delivery, he said.

Making them autonomous, he said, would speed up processes and in turn benefit communities.

In addition, he said decentralisation would hasten implementation of the public private partnership model which had been rather slow.

Meanwhile, Nata/Gweta leadership welcomed the proposal as a step in the right direction.

Kgosi Oletsositse Mosweu of Dukwi said the proposed policy would save residents costs of having to travel to seek services elsewhere.ends