The First National Bank (FNB) Academy for Municipal Excellence – FAME – is a crucial programme that can assist the North West Local Government and Human Settlements in transforming municipalities.

Speaking at the recent launch of FAME, Local Government and Human Settlements MEC Collen Maine has commended the FNB Academy.

“The quest to achieve excellence in local government is best captured in the National Development Plan (NDP) that by 2030, we should have a developmental state that is accountable, focused on citizen’s priorities, and capable of delivering high-quality services, consistently and sustainably, through cooperative governance and participatory democracy.

“Therefore, both the private and public sector programmes remain critical in achieving this,” he said.

According to the MEC, the programme is intended to contribute towards improving administrative and financial skills among senior officials in participating municipalities.

Maine has expressed the provincial government’s support for the programme and encouraged the private sector to continue playing a key role in bringing much needed interventions that are aimed at improving service delivery in municipalities and making local government function better.

The FNB Academy for Municipal Excellence project is aligned to the (NDP) and COGTA’s Back to Basics approach, which aims to set clear benchmarks of performance to ensure that all municipalities perform their basic responsibilities.

The first priority of Back to Basics Transformational Agenda is to get all municipalities out of a dysfunctional state and at the very least ensure that they are able to perform the basic functions of local government.

“Proper financial skills and management is necessary to achieve this and other Back to Basics priorities. We believe that creating knowledge-sharing platforms for private and public sector officials, such as this one, will contribute to capacity building and strengthen governance,” concluded Maine.