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In the Western Cape, ten municipalities have been short listed for the prestigious Vuna provincial excellence awards, of which the three winners will be announced on 29 October 2003. (See the list of municipalities below.) The first prize in the Western Cape is R750 000 with the runner-up prizes of R500 000 and R250 000. These winners will form part of the 27 finalists who will compete for the first, second and third prize at national level. The best municipality on national level will receive R3 million with R2 million to the second place and R1 million to the third place.

The Vuna Awards have as aim to identify good practices and to facilitate shared learning among municipalities. With these Awards the initiative aims to:
* Promote creativity and innovation in municipal service delivery
* Promote efficacy of expanded development programs such as the Consolidated Municipal Infrastructure Programme (CMIP), Local Economic Development (LED), Integrated Development Plans (IDPs) Urban Renewal Program (URP) and Integrated Sustainable Rural Development Programme (ISRDP)
* Recognise municipal institutional effectiveness and efficiency
* Promote good local governance
* Benchmark performance
* Identify and support poor performing municipalities
* Improve the profile/image of local government
* Build community and stakeholders' confidence in municipalities
* Enhance systems of developmental local government.

The Awards intend to motivate municipalities to continuously seek mechanisms of improving performance.

The ten short listed municipalities have been and will continue to be assessed against the following criteria:

(1) Service delivery: This will focus on how municipalities have provided municipal services in the past three years including delivery strategies within the Integrated Development Programme (IDP) framework and projects that have significantly improved the lives of citizens.

(2) A focus on activities and programmes developed to promote Local Economic Development (LED) and thus contribute to job creation.

(3) A focus on transforming of municipal institutions, especially against performance targets including quality and effective leadership provided by administrators and politicians and effective implementation of municipal workplace skills and employment equity plans.

(4) A focus on municipal financial viability including mobilisation, effective collection and spending of municipal revenue.

(5) A focus on good governance including the roles and functions of the Mayor, Speaker, Municipal Manager and the Executive Committee with emphasis on decision making models/arrangements; mechanisms for ensuring adherence to code of conduct; performance management systems; and accountability to stakeholders.

Next week a panel consisting of the provincial Department of Local Government, WECLOGO, Development Bank of Southern Africa and DPLG will start with a four-day visit to these short listed municipalities to evaluate and validate the information supplied by short listed municipalities.

I want to congratulate the short listed municipalities and it is my fervent wish that the municipalities in the Western Cape will set the benchmark for the Vuna Awards.

The short listed municipalities are:

* Beaufort West Municipality
* Bergrivier Municipality
* Breede River/Winelands Municipality
* Central Karoo District Municipality
* City of Cape Town
* Matzikama Municipality
* Saldanha Bay Municipality
* Stellenbosch Municipality
* Swartland Municipality
* Theewaterskloof Municipality

Enquiries: Jan Bosman, 083-7755-312

Issued by: Ministry of Local Government, Western Cape Provincial Government

9 October 2003