Polokwane quest for metro status| Mission impossible without organizational discipline, says executive mayor John Mpe
POLOKWANE executive mayor, John Mpe, says local economic growth through capital projects and infrastructure development remains the core of the municipality’s mission to attain metro status.
However, he was all too aware that the mission would just be a mirage without organizational discipline that may also require action to be taken against erratic officials.
Speaking at the first 2024 municipality’s strategic planning session, Mpe said: “As leadership, we need to detect our own problems even before the A-G (Auditor-General) comes. If other leaders in the municipality do not do their work, they are also leading others to fail.
‘In many instances, we have to protect ‘you’ from ‘you’ because when we act, the leadership will be accused of victimization.”
The municipality has been pursuing to be the first metro in the Limpopo province through its City2030 vision. The country currently has eight metros
Gauteng has three metros – Ekurhuleni, Johannesburg and Tshwane. There’s also Buffalo City and Nelson Mandela Bay in the Eastern Cape, eThekwini in KwaZulu-Natal, Mangaung in the Free State and Cape Town in the Western Cape.
Factors to be considered for a municipality to be declared a metro include the rate of revenue collection and extensive development , amongst many others.
It was against this background that Mpe spoke about the need to timeously complete municipal projects and to increase the rate of revenue collection – the factors that remain a challenge up to date.
“For me to realize the vision of a metro status, it requires, amongst others, improvement in revenue collection. We agreed in the political interaction that we expand the smart metres in Mankweng – it’s the resolution of the council.
“We cannot divorce revenue payment from the quality of services and reliability of such services,” he said.
Mankweng is a sprawling residential area east of Polokwane and which has no installed smart metres, but revenue collection remain low.
The matter was, at some stage, one of the central issues in the fierce and violent protests by the residents of Seshego demanding consistency.
Mpe also reiterated the call for district roads (D-Roads) to be transferred from Road Agency Limpopo (RAL) to the municipality to enhance economic growth.
“Roads are important in driving economic growth. To build a city, we need roads that are reliable and that will be in the asset books of the municipality,” Mpe said.
He added: “We remain unwavering in pursuit of our metro status. The growth of our local economy through capital projects and infrastructure development is an integral part of our metro vision.”
