By: Cllr Tjaart van der Walt, 5 September 2019
The DA welcomes the call by Mangaung Metro for all residents, businesses, developers, non profit organisations and other stakeholders to register as interested and/or affected parties in order to take part in the public sessions during the course of the project to compile a credible Spatial Development Framework (SDF) that will be supported by all stakeholders. Residents, developers and other organisations are encouraged to email tilfred.mabuza@mangaung.co.za to register before 20 September
In 2018, after sustained DA pressure the City Manager admitted that the SDF had not been gazetted since 2014, but fell short of admitting that the public participation process for reviewing the SDF in the past years had fallen short of the requirements stipulated in SPLUMA, the Municipal Systems Act and the Constitution.
SDF forms an Integral Part of the Integrated Development Plan of a municipality, which is approved on an annual basis together with the budget in terms of various pieces of legislation. In order for the plans of the municipality to be successful it is critical for the community and all stakeholders to broadly support the implementation of the SDF, IDP and Budget. Therefore it is critical to ensure that most stakeholders in a municipality buy into the vision and implementation plans of a city.
Other critical issues in the Planning department that need to be addressed, and will be prioritised by the DA include:
-The city’s failure to address the critical shortage of staff and especially to appoint a General Manager in Town Planning.
-The failure to implement a SPLUMA required Land Use Management System, which has already been compiled and paid for
-The lack of ongoing dialogue between the municipality and stakeholders in the Spatial Planning and Land Use Management sector of Mangaung
-A lack of customer service orientation in the planning departments, such as building plans, Municipal Planing Tribunal and town planning.
-Paying lip service to Spatial Transformation while there are no posts for critical issues like formalisation of informal settlements and pre-empting urbanisation trends
-The DA remains hopeful that the current process will lead to a Spatial Development Framework that adequately addresses the needs of businesses that want to develop the economy of Mangaung, the majority of the residents of Mangaung, as well as institutions that are central to the economy of the city, such as UFS, CUT, sports tourism, education and the financial services sector.
Media Enquires
Tjaart van der Walt
DA Mangaung Councilor
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Councillor Tjaart van der Walt 