The Siyenza Manje (we are doing it now) initiative, launched by government and managed by the Development Bank of Southern Africa’s (DBSA) Development Fund, is accomplishing its objective of building capacity at municipal level.

Over the past year, 81 experts were deployed in under-capacitated municipalities in eight provinces to assist with the implementation of infrastructure projects, planning and financial capacity building. Municipalities whose Municipal Infrastructure Grants (MIG) were not being disbursed were specifically targeted to ensure allocation translated into delivery. This mobilization of experts to provide professional support for project and programme implementation was meant not only to unlock service delivery bottlenecks but to sustain the thrust of the government’s Project Consolidate.

Through the Siyenza Manje programme, 471 projects are being implemented in the participating municipalities and 97 have been completed. Around 170 000 households have received access to water and 120 000 to sanitation as a result of the hands-on technical support provided by the experts during all phases of managing a project.

Also, an estimated 70 000 bucket toilets have been eradicated, 76 officials trained in the implementation of the Municipal Finance Management Act and skills transferred to municipal officials on a daily basis on the life cycle of each and every project in which the experts have been involved. To date R1,2 billion has been spent on Siyenza Manje related projects.

Through the DBSA Development Fund, 16 young graduates were placed in municipalities and mentored by the experts. The Fund agreed to carry the cost of placing these graduates for a year as municipalities had not made provision for this in their personnel budgets.

Siyenza Manje, though managed by the Bank’s Development Fund, is a partnership between the DBSA, National Treasury, the Department of Provincial and Local Government, and the South African Local Government Association. It is one of the Bank’s major transformation programmes and an indeed a ground-breaking response to the shortage of properly qualified professional and technical personnel in many municipalities.