Cape Town – Communications Minister Faith Muthambi says local government is a very important sphere of government and that communicators should use community media to relate key messages to people on the ground.
The Minister said this when she was interacting with communicators from across all spheres of government, including those from state-owned agencies, on Friday.
In her address at the Imbizo Centre in Parliament, she said the various means of communications that exists between people and their local governments needed to be nurtured to ensure that desired change can be brought to the lives of all South Africans.
“Local government has the responsibility to communicate and collaborate with the public, which is done in a number of different ways. One such important means is community media.
“Community media reflects a type of media that is set and run by those within the community, so it is built entirely for their service.
“This is perfect as local government is also answerable to the people of its set locality,” she said.
The Minister said communication between government and its people was important; there should be no communications gaps between needs and delivery.
Before the Minister addressed communicators, she interacted with commuters, informal traders and general members of the public at a busy taxi rank in Khayelitsha.
At the rank, she greeted people and later told them that they can approach her department to enquire about services that are available to them and to raise any service delivery concerns.
She told journalists that members of the public wanted to interact with their public representatives and that it was important to ensure such communication was sustained.
“By employing the use of community media and its counterparts, at local government level this type of communication and collaboration moves easily and becomes more relevant with each locality.
“It only makes sense then that there is great potential for the partnership between community media and local governments. Our community media therefore needs to be strengthened and invested in, because this will have the trickledown effect of resulting in the easiest way for local government and the people to communicate.
“Local government has got the responsibility to communicate and collaborate with the government,” she said.
Government responding to technological evolution
The Minister also said izimbizo – which are public outreach meetings with citizens – was a good way to communicate with members of the public.
“In recent years, the Imbizo has escalated to a public participation forum for local government and its occupants, where grievances, concerns and other urgent matters are discussed in the hopes of achieving a way forward.”
She said, however, that due to the ever changing times, the traditional methods of communications were “swiftly dwindling”, and that technological advancements were coming into play.
Government was alive to the new trends and was responding to the shift, the Minister said.
“Technology has become more convenient as people’s lives have become increasingly busy, leaving them little time to concentrate on things which may be easy to ignore like participation within their local governments.
“The government has recognised this shift, and is doing its best to respond to this growing need for more technological association in government matters, so that our people still have time for the other important activities that fill their lives,” she said. – SAnews.gov.za
