MEC Miga speaks to new members of Provincial House of Traditional and Khoi-San Leaders
MEC for Cooperative Governance, Human Settlements and Traditional Affairs, Lenah Miga has re-committed the department to working closely with the Provincial House of Traditional and Khoi-San leaders to address issues affecting traditional leaders in the province.
Addressing a three-day induction workshop for the new members of the Provincial House of Traditional and Khoi-San Leadership in Rustenburg on Thursday, Miga said the new leadership must work closely with the department to address the challenges facing communities, especially on issues of traditional leadership disputes.
She also emphasised the importance of a healthy and close working relationship between councillors and traditional leaders. “We are reaching out to you with a view to enhancing our relationship and to urge you to encourage all local houses to deepen and cement the relationship between municipalities and traditional leaders on issues of customary law as well as development initiatives”, she said.
She said as part of supporting traditional leaders, the department will work with dikgosi to strength structures and institutions of traditional leadership. “We are together on a mission to lead our communities towards development as we recognise your critical role in the Rural Development Strategy, this is why as government we are committed to ensure that we have strong institutions of traditional leadership”, Miga said.
She also appealed to dikgosi to join hands with government to deal with the challenges facing the country. “Our society has seemingly lost its moral fibre, we are heading down a very sleeper slope and are on the brink of a lost generation. I believe we can only correct the status quo if traditional leaders can take their rightful place in society”, she said.
She said as part of celebrating women’s month, traditional leaders must speak against the abuse of women and children. “There is a rise in the number of Gender-based violence (GBV) cases and other acts of violation of the rights of women and children. We cannot allow a situation where women and children cannot walk freely in their own neighbourhood without fear of being molested, abused, raped, killed or abducted. I therefore want to take this opportunity and use this platform to plead with dikgosi to stand up and condemn these social ills’’, she concluded.
Source: Government of South Africa