The country’s biggest municipalities are looking to innovation in an attempt to unleash ideas that will help tackle some of the most pressing service delivery needs.
On Friday, during the U20 African Mayors’ Assembly at the Centre for Scientific and Industrial Research in Pretoria, the SA Local Government Association (Salga) unveiled the Inner-City Innovation Challenge.
All eight metropolitan municipalities – Johannesburg, Tshwane, Ekurhuleni, Cape Town, eThekwini, Nelson Mandela Bay, Buffalo City, and Mangaung – will be part of the challenge, according to Monique Griffith, Joburg’s head of innovation partnerships in the municipality’s smart city office.
Griffith said the Inner-City Innovation Challenge will see the introduction of innovation in service delivery. Metros, Griffith promised, will do things smarter and more intelligently.
Tshwane Mayor Dr Nasiphi Moya said there is a realisation in municipalities that they need to do more with less.
She said innovation was non-negotiable and must be embedded in institutions in local government.
“It must be a culture. We can’t keep doing things the same way while changes are taking place outside,” explained Moya, adding that municipalities must adapt.
She said the government cannot be built by politicians and officials alone and needs a healthy relationship with the private sector.
According to Moya, innovation is not just technology, but also rethinking systems to enable municipalities to deliver better services.
She said the private sector should be incentivised and encouraged to innovate.
Moya called on city leaders (politicians and the administration) to accept that the challenges faced by municipalities cannot be solved solely by them.
Ekurhuleni Mayor Nkosindiphile Xhakaza said one of the biggest challenges municipalities were facing was cable theft, which needs greater conversations and time spent on how it must be dealt with.
He made the example of Tembisa, a sprawling township in Ekurhuleni, where cables are stolen on the same spot every week despite interventions such as early warning systems and surveillance.
Xhakaza said the interventions were not helping, and more collaboration and assistance were required, although the municipality was struggling to mobilise the private sector.
Additionally, he said raiding scrap yards at which the stolen cables were sold was also not helping.
Xhakaza stated that Ekurhuleni has opened its doors for anyone willing to bring technology to the municipality.
“We call for more of these innovative technologies to be piloted in the City of Ekurhuleni,” he said.
Salga Deputy President Xola Pakati said innovation proposals should help improve service delivery, and that the challenge was designed to explore and amplify municipal innovation.
He said the key question was: “How best do we use innovation to serve our people?”
The Inner-City Innovation Challenge is now open for proposals until August 15, and will be an annual event, as well as possibly products being developed across the continent, according to Salga Chief Digital Officer, Kutlwano Chaba.
