There is a need for municipal councils to move away from depending on Government assistance.
Local Government Minister Maciu Nalumisa said this while urging municipal council administrators to operate each council like a business.
“Today we should be moving away from relying on somebody else to give us assistance or the monetary help to fund our municipalities,” said Mr Nalumisa.
“So that is the big question which is how we can move away from relying on government.
“Now we need to look at better ways of managing and sustaining our own councils.
“We need to run our municipalities like running a business because when we change that mindset then we move away from that bureaucratic way of thinking and we tend to look at not only ourselves and we look at the people that we serve, and we try and make that the people that we serve are getting the best service.”
Mr Nalumisa was speaking at the recent Municipal Council’s Chief Executive Officer and Special Administrators Forum in Sigatoka where the two day discussions focused on the importance of governance within municipal councils across the country.
He said governance was a key factor to ensuring services were delivered to the public and that each council was meeting their main objectives each year.
“Some projects are forwarded to me because there was express of interest done or tender done and there was no public consultation done.
“That is not good governance.
“This is about serving the people who have entrusted us to hold the position that we have right now.
“Some of the very hard questions that we need to ask ourselves when we look at governance is, is our decisions strengthening public trust?
“The next question, ‘are our councils delivering measurable benefits?
“If a ratepayer is paying $1 to you, you must make sure that $1 is returned twice or triple than what they pay you. That is the way of thinking that I want all of us to change to.”
