/ 19 December 2007

Celebrating service excellence

The Vuna Awards, which took place this week, provide an incentive for municipalities, rewarding those that give their communities excellent services and governance.

In keeping with its name (Vuna means ‘harvest together” in the Nguni family of languages), ‘the awards seek to encourage service excellence and to celebrate municipalities, which are sowing the seeds of genuine development, laying the basis for the harvest of a better life for ordinary citizens of our country” according to the department of provincial and local government.

The awards were initiated by the department in conjunction with the South African Local Government Association, the Development Bank of Southern Africa and the National Productivity Institute.

‘The awards identify and acknowledge the best practice, quality performance and innovation among South Africa’s municipalities,” says Elroy Africa, deputy director general at the department.

He says the aim of the awards is to create a culture of accountability and high performance by recognising accomplishments and setting benchmarks.

The Vuna Awards evaluate contesting municipalities on the basis of five key performance areas:

  • Service delivery;
  • Local economic development;
  • Municipal transformation and institutional development;
  • Financial viability; and
  • Good governance.

Africa says an important indicator is the extent to which municipalities are improving at building their own capacity.

‘The opinion of the Auditor General as to the state of municipalities’ finances is a key financial indicator for the awards, as is the extent to which municipalities are dependent on grants from national government, the competence with which income revenues are managed and the effectiveness of credit control strategies.”

The awards also focus on rewarding the delivery of basic services, especially free basic services, and addressing the socio-economic development imperatives of communities.

The awards encourage work on developmental goals, focusing on poverty alleviation and creating jobs through capital or infrastructural programmes that make use of local labour or local contractors.

The assessment process of the awards also examines whether youth and women are specially targeted for job creation.

Launched in 2003, the awards are based on a system of application. Municipalities can enter the contest in the metropolitan, district or local municipal categories and winners progress to provincial and national level. At provincial level the winning municipality receives a prize of R750 000 and the runner-up R250 000. At the national level there is only one prize of R2-million for the overall winner in each category.

More than 140 of the country’s 283 municipalities entered the 2007 Vuna Awards compared to 123 last year.

Africa says the quality of participation in the awards has improved steadily, which indicates how the country’s local government system is maturing.

‘By international standards our local government system is very young. Yet, in a short seven-year period, municipalities have developed a much better understanding of their function and this is reflected in the quality of information received in Vuna Award submissions.”