We are working closely with universities to promote social work as a career option and will in the coming year provide bursaries to close to 200 students who chose to pursue a career in social work.
Through the Gauteng Human Resource Development strategy we will continue to focus on addressing the shortage of health workers with an emphasis on scarce skills in health professionals and increasing the production of nurses by 20% each year until 2009.
In the coming financial year, working in partnership with Higher Education Institutions in the province, we will finalise a conceptual and institutional framework for the development of a Gauteng Urban Observatory.
Building a city-region for economic growth will require us to work closely with universities, research institutes, other government institutions and industries to harness the intellectual power, knowledge and innovation strengths of all our partners.
In this regard, we welcome the new partnership between the University of Witwatersrand and the University of Johannesburg in support of the Gauteng city region initiative.
Our comprehensive Gauteng Human Resource Development Strategy, which we completed last year, provides a framework for the development of the skills the Gauteng city region needs to drive economic growth and social transformation.
To drive the implementation of the strategy for the province, we have established the Gauteng Human Resource Planning and Development Agency and have already appointed its head.
We hope to finalise partnership agreements for talent identification and development for priority skills in the Gauteng public service for
the realisation of the GCR by December 2007. The agency will also be responsible for Ithuteng Tiro priority skills development focussing on ICT, business process outsourcing, construction engineers and artisans.
In addition, we will start work on the establishment of a Gauteng City Region development agency model that will bring existing development agencies in the
province together to assist with the requirements of building a competitive city region.
In the coming year, we will undertake an economic footprint study to understand the economic linkages both within Gauteng and with its neighbouring economic areas. This study will map major companies located in significant economic areas, identify significant projects that can be harnessed for economic growth,
identify trade and industry flows, their value and also identify critical logistics required.
In line with the national spatial development perspective, we have completed a Gauteng spatial development perspective which aims to direct the spatial location of future economic, development and infrastructure spending in the province.
In this regard, public sector fixed investment will prioritise existing areas of economic activity, areas of potential economic activity and areas that play a supportive role in the regional economy.
In addition, we will promote socio-economic inclusion by paying particular attention to investment in areas of economic activity or potential economic activity which coincides with really poor areas.
A successful Gauteng city region requires both strong local government and strong provincial government.
We have therefore been working hard to develop managerial and leadership capacity within local municipalities as well as to facilitate the provision of the necessary technical skills. This work will continue with the deployment of financial experts and engineers in the coming year.
We call on all municipalities to ensure alignment between plans and resources. On our side we pledge to ensure alignment of provincial plans to local economic development plans.
While municipalities must focus on the provision of basic services, more importantly, municipalities in Gauteng must focus on economic
development, social and economic infrastructure and poverty alleviation programmes.
The success of the Gauteng City Region lies in our ability to integrate our plans to maximise our socio-economic opportunities across various spheres of government and move seamlessly on a common development path.
To achieve this, we have pursued with vigour the process of Integrated Development Planning across both
provincial departments and municipalities. The IDP process has proven to be an effective forum for raising issues to be attended to by all the three spheres of government.
In our planning, coordination and implementation, we need to develop a shared analysis and a common data set, sequence our planning cycles, avoid
internal competition and ensure continuous and honest engagement with various stakeholders.
Therefore, we will in the process of consolidating the Gauteng city region: " ensure the alignment of all strategies with global city region objectives;
" consolidate institutions of alignment, intergovernmental coordination and decision-making; " strengthen joint planning and implementation across
departments and municipalities and " strengthen the technical capacities of both provincial and local government.
We have, through our provincial treasury, supported the nine delegated municipalities in Gauteng to ensure the implementation of financial reforms in terms of the Municipal Finance Management Act (MFMA), including in the development of multi-year budgets and in improving financial management skills and capacity.
In the coming year we will continue to assist municipalities in developing IDPs, credible budgets and in monitoring compliance with the MFMA. In addition, we will place particular emphasis on improved financial governance, focusing on risk management, asset management, internal audit, financial accounting and financial information systems.
In addition to focusing on the improvement of financial systems in municipalities the provincial treasury will also take steps to improve financial management and compliance with the Public Finance Management Act by the provincial government.
We will work hard to ensure that none of our departments receive a disclaimer. Our target is to see to it that all our departments once more receive unqualified audit opinions by 2009.
At the same time, we should not be satisfied with unqualified audits and in the longer term, we will strive to achieve clean audits by taking steps to reduce the number of emphases of matter in our audit opinions.
Sapa
Publisher: I-Net Bridge
Source: I-Net Bridge
