The Mossel Bay Municipality has bagged another award, this time the Provincial Integrated Development Planning Directorate’s Best Practice award for Neighbourhood Development Planning.

The Municipality was one of five municipalities in the Western Cape that were identified to pilot the neighbourhood development process in the province during 2011/2012. The other municipalities were Witzenberg, Cederberg, Theewaterskloof and Beaufort West but Mossel Bay’s Integrated Development Plan was adjudged as the best for incorporating the NDP process as part of its long-term development strategy.

The Municipal Manager, Dr Michele Gratz, said the Municipality is very pleased with this award, which should place the Municipality in a favourable position to qualify for grant funding to help it to address the plight of the poor in the Mossel Bay municipal area.

The Neighbourhood Development Programme was initiated by the National Treasury to stimulate and accelerate investment in poor, underserved residential neighbourhoods by providing technical assistance and capital grant financing for municipal projects that have either a distinct private sector element or an intention to achieve this.

The award made by the Provincial IDP Directorate went to the municipality that best incorporated key analytical and business concepts into its Integrated Development Plan. Known as the IDP, the latter is the Municipality’s key planning document and forms the basis for its annual budgets.

In addition to being one of only five municipalities out of 28 in the Western Cape that received a clean audit for the 2011/2012 financial year, the Mossel Bay Municipality also received several other awards in the course of the year. These included being the overall winner of the Most Improved Audit Award in the Western Cape, winning the category for coastal and biodiversity management and urban beautification in in the Western Cape 2012 Greenest Municipality Competition and being placed second overall in the same competition. 

It also won the joint award of the Institute of Municipal Engineering of Southern Africa (IMESA) and Consulting Engineers South Africa (CESA) in the category for water and waste water projects for 2012 for its seawater desalination plant.