Find infrastructure answers, Baloyi urges
2011-11-24 20:23
Johannesburg - Municipal officials need to look at dealing with infrastructure problems in new ways, Co-operative Governance Minister Richard Baloyi said on Thursday.
"When a programme does not work, don't try to put another name on that programme and hope it will work. We need to come up with answers that will not become problems in the future," said Baloyi.
He said officials who came up with fancy terms for a problem, were not really solving the problem.
"Everything you do should be done towards reaching your achievements. Let's get our hands dirty."
Baloyi was speaking at a municipal infrastructure consultative conference in Boksburg.
The conference was discussing ways to support municipalities with planning, developing, repairing and maintaining ailing infrastructure to improve service delivery.
Baloyi earlier said municipal leaders and officials should stop blaming poor service delivery on apartheid.
"We can't blame it [service delivery] on apartheid. Gone are those days," he told delegates.
"Today, we cannot claim that we do not own this infrastructure. It is for us to rise above it and do something [about failing infrastructure]."
Baloyi said an internship programme was on the cards to train municipal officials.
"I will engage with universities to work with us through an internship programme and try shape their courses to help interns deal with specific problems in the municipality."
An internship programme should be set up where academics worked for the municipality for a year as a practical part of their courses, he said.
This would help generate the skills needed to deal with ageing and failing infrastructure.
- SAPA