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President Jacob Zuma spent a significant amount time speaking about the effects of apartheid spatial planning at the presidential local government summit this morning.
“This summit aims to provide strategic direction for the new term of local government.”
He admitted that South Africa’s local government still faces challenges that need to be addressed.
“Apartheid geography and centralised spatial planning ensured that the majority of our people were housed and located in marginal areas from the city centres, far away from the economic hub and opportunities, as well as from services”, he said.
He added that this spatial planning was what perpetuated marginalised peoples’ exclusion from the economy.
Jeff Radebe, minister in the presidency, said black South Africans still need to be “fully liberated from apartheid spatial injustices”.
Zuma listed additional challenges being a high number of households without access to piped water, bad roads, poor quality of reconstruction and development programmes, crumbling water infrastructure and poor sewage system, poor financial management of some municipalities and insufficient revenue collection.
“It must be mentioned that South Africa’s population during this period, also increased from about 40 million in 2001, to about 55 million in 2015, and our people are living longer thanks to our improved health services,” he added.
He reiterated the point mentioned by Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister, Des van Rooyen, that poor interaction between councillors and communities in some municipalities was a challenge.
“We are aware of these challenges and affected municipalities should work harder and faster to correct them, which is why we come together as we are doing this week,” said the president.
“Apartheid policies resulted in the underdevelopment of black communities. As a result we are faced with a huge backlog in all areas of infrastructure,” said Van Rooyen.
With great emphasis on unity the president said “there is a lot we should do to build better municipalities and ensure that our people’s experience of local government is a pleasant one.”
Friday April 7 will be the second day and last day of the 3rd Presidential Local Government Summit.
It is also the day that thousands of people take to the streets to protest, calling for Zuma’s removal as president.
