North West Premier Thandi Modise has urged civil society organisations to be the voice and conscience as well as to provide the support network to ensure that quality service is delivered to communities.

Modise made this appeal during her keynote address delivered at the National Non-Profit Organisation (NPO) summit on service delivery under the theme: “Making Service Delivery for the people”. She emphasised that a partnership between government and civil society is important to address the triple challenges of poverty, unemployment and inequality.

“We must respect the role of civil society because addressing these challenges is a mammoth task that can never be addressed by government alone. Accelerating service delivery requires us to work together, be more creative and coordinate our efforts as different stakeholders because civil society can also not resolve these challenges alone,” Modise said.

She condemned violent protests that have affected the country recently. “Destruction of public and private properties and plunging of communities into violent conflicts without constructive engagements on platforms which have been established for dialogue and consultation undermine the rule of law and the freedom we fought for,” Modise stressed.