The Weskus District Municipality can celebrate a first for a municipality in South Africa.
The municipality with its head office in Moorreesburg, managed to retain its 12th consecutive clean audit status from 2010-’11 to 2021-’22. This outcome, together with the well governed local municipalities within the area, comes after competing with many other geographical areas in South Africa.
While a clean audit status does not necessarily translate into essential basic and community services, the Weskus District Municipality is a prime example of all this being accomplished.
Good audit outcomes have a direct impact on the evaluation and assessment of an entity’s credit rating and gives prospective investors confidence in a particular region or sector. The ratings for the district municipality are underpinned by its solid financial profile, supported by its robust net cash position.
Provision of Bulk Water Services
The Weskus District Municipality is the only district municipality in the province operating as a water services provider within a water concession for local municipalities – in this case the Saldanha Bay, Swartland and Bergrivier municipalities. Good cooperation among the four municipalities ensures the 50+ year-old bulk water infrastructure is maintained and managed in such a manner to ensure water provision to communities. The partnership among these municipalities ensures the water-treatment works continue to operate and is not impacted by load shedding to ensure the basic right of water provision is adhered to.
Road construction
Weskus District Municipality performs road construction on behalf of the Western Cape Government and Department of Transport and Public Works (WCG DTPW). This includes project approvals, materials purchasing, personnel administration and project proposals of road construction projects.
While the agreement made provision for gravel-road maintenance and re-gravelling, expertise and skills within the department also allowed for the reseal and construction of two major projects in the current financial year.
The resealing of a 25,52 km of road in Brandsebaai and the construction of a 18,2 km road between Vredenburg and Stompneus Bay are two of the flagship projects of this partnership.
The provision of good road surfaces and their maintenance are a critical component in ensuring effective movement of people between commodities. These road projects contribute immensely to local economic development and job creation in the region.
Firefighting services
While there are many concerns about the standard and mandates of fire services the Weskus District Municipality has made significant strides over the last decade. Its Fire and Rescue Services, with six fire stations across the district, has a primary focus on veld and mountain fires. Working relations among stakeholders such as the Fire Protection Association, Working on Fire, Western Cape Department of Disaster Management, Cape Nature, SANParks, Department of Fisheries Forestry and Environment ensures effective fire responses in the region.
Environmental Health
The Weskus District Municipality is responsible for the rendering of municipal health services within their boundaries. The ±33 111 km² area require substantial travelling to render municipal health services to the public.
Services rendered include Environmental Health Services, Environmental Management and Air Quality Services.
Coordinated Disaster and Community Safety Integration
The challenges experienced with the police services across the district places and increasing burden on community and farm safety, the crime outlook of the various areas and the hostility to social and community outreach programs.
Through funding availed by the Western Cape Department of Community Safety, the Weskus District Municipality has facilitated and championed a coordinated responsiveness implementation to community safety.
Focus areas include:
. Establishment of a district Community Safety Forum (CSF).
. Assistance with establishment of CSF’s for four local municipalities with Cederberg Municipality yet to be finalised.
. Establishment and operationalising of an Emergency Response and Prevention Operational Centre.
. Securing six radio communication licenses from ICASA on behalf of all five local municipalities within the district.
. Roll out of radio communication base stations to each of the local municipalities for ease of communication across jurisdictional boundaries.
. Roll out of 10 radios to South African Police Services stations within the district for effective and concise communication.
. Dual space used by Saps and the Western Cape Provincial Traffic within the emergency/call centre.
. Various awareness and integrated stakeholder response campaigns conducted.
Boffie Strydom, Executive Mayor of the Weskus District, says it is an honour and privilege to work with such dedicated staff and councillors.
“This clean audit is the culmination of the hard work of municipal staff and effective oversight by council,” he said.
“If we continue to put people first and ensure that we conform to the prescriptions as set out by the Auditor-General, the Weskus District Municipality will continue to be one of the best run municipalities in South Africa.”
