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Wednesday, 24 November 2010 13:56 |
Deputy Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA), Yunus Carrim, facilitated a meeting between the Tswaing municipality and the Sannieshof Inwoners Belastingbetalers Unie (Ratepayers Association) ( SBIU) in Sannieshof.
Members of the SBIU have been refusing to pay service charges and rates to the municipality because they claim that they are not receiving services. Instead the ratepayers pay their dues into a SBIU fund, and the SBIU provides some of the services.
The municipality holds that the activities of SBIU are illegal and cannot be acceptable in a democracy.
The meeting was held to facilitate dialogue between the Tswaing municipality and SBIU to end the current stalemate.
The Tswaing municipality agreed to be more accessible to the SBIU as part of a new outreach campaign that will draw in all the key stakeholders in the municipality.
The SBIU agreed to consider reviewing its boycott stance as part of ongoing negotiations.
It was agreed that CoGTA would work with the North West provincial government Tswaing municipality and other stakeholders to organize a more inclusive conference to ensure more effective cooperation of all parties to significantly improve service delivery and development. Among those to be invited to the conference are ratepayers, civic, business and trade union organizations, and academic and technical experts.
Both the Tswaing councilors and SBIU agreed that they have a common interest in ensuring improvements in local democracy, service delivery and development, that benefits the residents of the municipality generally, in particular the poor and disadvantaged.
Yunus Carrim
Deputy Minister for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs
For queries regarding this statement, please ring Brutus Malada (082 73 60265
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