KEETMANSHOOP – Keetmanshoop mayor Gaudentia Krohne wants to see and feel the results of the memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed between the town and the Dawid Kruiper Municipality from the Northern Cape Province, South Africa.
Speaking during the signing ceremony of the MoU at Keetmanshoop on Thursday, Krohne said while the agreement signed makes way for cooperation and collaboration between the two municipalities, this relationship should strive to work for results that can be seen by residents of both municipalities and not only end in the boardrooms.
She said the MoU aims to promote tourism, economic development, environmental management, youth sports and cultural exchanges and it is therefore of critical importance that the two municipalities remain true to the ideals, as well as live up to the expectations of the MoU, and she specifically singled out tourism as a sector with a huge potential that must be explored to create jobs to ease unemployment and poverty.
“Most importantly the benefits that flow out of this type of agreement should be felt concretely by the inhabitants living in and around these participating localities, and as mayor of Keetmanshoop I would be happy to see action plans flow out of this agreement and the scale of benefit derived by both parties,” she said.
The mayor further said while bilateral agreements are established to facilitate cooperation at the national level, agreements formalised through MoUs at sub-national level have the potential to cascade the objectives of bilateral agreements down to the grassroots level, and therefore the MoU is in a broader sense an agreement of brother and sisterhood that aims to search for better life and opportunities for people of the two municipalities.
She said as part of a global village, municipalities can no longer work in isolation but must do things as a team and therefore the signing of the agreement presents a committed approach for the two local authorities to work more closely to reach a common goal of a better tomorrow for all.
“Under the current economic state no local authority no matter how big or well established can address its challenges by itself – the reality is we live in an era of globalisation and interdependence and in a service delivery environment with similar challenges such agreements to keep ahead of service delivery challenges are inevitable,” stated the mayor.
Her South African counterpart, the executive mayor of Dawid Kruiper Municipality Limakatso Koloi in her brief statement of intent said while such agreements are important, it is up to those responsible to make them work and not sign agreements and leave them to gather dust with no tangible results, and she reminded those present that this was not the first time the two municipalities have signed such an agreement.
“We are very excited to be here – we had a similar agreement in 2008, but this time around we must take this twinning agreement very seriously; local government is where things happen and we should take our people seriously,” she said.