It’s clear, the Overberg is the place to be – from the top holiday destinations to Kwêla town of the year to two of the best municipalities in the Western Cape.
At the Service Excellence Awards (SEA) held on 12 May at Cape Town’s Century City Conference Centre the Overstrand was honoured as the Best Municipality, while Cape Agulhas Municipality (CAM) walked away in third place.
CAM shared this award with the West Coast District Municipality. Drakenstein Municipality and Swartland Municipality were in second place.
Purpose of competition
The SEA is an annual intervention by the Western Cape Government (WCG) that promotes a citizen-centred culture, entrenches professionalism and recognises and rewards excellence.
According to a spokesperson from the WCG the purpose is to entrench the provincial government’s value of caring by appreciating and recognising employees in exemplary cases.
Among the categories were: Best Frontline Service Delivery Employee; Best Municipal Project; Best Municipality, Best Public Service Leader (Exemplary) and Best Public Service Innovator Employee.
The Best Municipality Category recognises a municipality that demonstrates commitment to citizen-centredness, service-delivery excellence and good government principles.
Overstrand Municipality
To be eligible for the prize for Best Municipality three years of clean audit reports must be on record.
“The Overstrand Municipality has exceeded this standard and achieved nine consecutive clean-audit reports,” a press release stated. “It has also adopted a zero-tolerance approach to good governance.”
These achievements place Overstrand Municipality among the top 5% of local municipalities in South Africa to have received three or more consecutive clean audits.
Providing dignified living conditions to all households remain a priority in the Overstrand and with the overall municipal performance of 86%, the municipality successfully executed its service delivery mandate to its residents.
“Notable was the provision of water, sanitation and refuse services to households in informal areas.
“The national standard of one toilet to five households were exceeded with a target of 930 vs actual of 934 toilet structures,” according to the press release.
The press release also stated that the municipality, as far as possible, made it easy for clients to do business with it. Limiting red tape is also a catalyst for promoting investment and development within the municipal area.
Cape Agulhas Municipality
CAM has achieved eight consecutive unqualified audit opinions with no matters (clean audits) since the 2013-’14 financial year. The 2021-’22 Audit is still in progress.
This emphasises the municipality’s commitment to clean administration and good governance, and investing its scarce resources in the right place in terms of its legislative mandate.
According to a press release from the WCG, despite many challenges the municipality remained focused and committed to the implementation of its Long-Term Financial Plan by constantly striving to sustain and/or improve its financial position through the application of good governance and sound financial management to provide affordable, quality and sustainable services to its community.
