President Cyril Ramaphosa was empathetic that government continues to commit its efforts to strengthen the local government infrastructure and accelerate service delivery through the District Development Model.

These are the words of Minister of Transport Mr Fikile Mbalula during the launch of one of the many legs of the District Development Model (DDM). The launch took place on Friday, 16 April 2021 at the King Cetshwayo District Municipality (KCDM).

The Model introduced by the Honourable President Cyril Ramaphosa during his delivery of the State of the Nation Address on 11 February 2021 forms part of the government’s continued strides of bringing forth change at local government level through the strengthening of local government infrastructure thereby fast-tracking service delivery.

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Minister Mbalula further highlighted that ‘the Model brings together all three spheres of government, to focus on key priorities and implementations of critical high impact projects.

He further explained that the introduction of the District Development Model formed part of the President’s plans of ensuring that elected leaders continuously work towards improving the state of the country and those who live in it.

“The president reassured the nation, that as elected leaders of the country, through the leadership of the National Congress, we are committed to improving the socio-economic conditions of our people, through decisive interventions to tackle the triple challenges of inequality, poverty and unemployment.”

He explained that unlike other models, the District Development’s co-function was to ensure that there was a collaborative effort between all spheres of government when planning and setting a budget and that these were in sync across the three spheres of government.

“Our collective efforts must, without fail, produce a holistic and well thought out “One Plan” for KCDM that clearly articulate a comprehensive and integrated macro-economic development plan based on budgeting and spending according to spatial outcomes.”

“More importantly, this must result in service delivery that is prompt and improves the lives of our people in a meaningful way,” said the Minster.