Michael Sakuneka

Michael Sakuneka

The Mopani district municipality has honoured hard-working departments during an annual executive mayor's excellence awards held in Tzaneen recently.

The awards are aimed at promoting better service delivery and good governance in municipalities.

The awards are in recognition of excellent contributions by the local municipalities towards the upliftment of the lives of communities.

They were awarded in various categories, including the most outstanding service provider, non-profit organisations, directorate, local municipality, district ambassador as well as the executive mayor's excellence award.

Those who were honoured received trophies and certificates.

In his address at the glittering ceremony, the district's executive mayor, Humphrey Mokgobi, said this had been a trial event and it was likely to be held yearly.

"This will play a role in motivating all municipal departments and non-governmental organisations in their efforts to improve the lives of people in the district," Mokgobi said.

Mokgobi said he was looking forward to the second awards next year.

He said they were doing this not to impress anyone, but to make people realise that their efforts were recognised by the government.

The overall winner in the category of the best performing municipality went to Maruleng local municipality near Hoedspruit, which recently scooped a national award for outstanding performance in the local economic development programmes in the province.

Greater Letaba and Giyani were runner-ups, while the previous recipients of the cleanest town in the country, Ba-Phalaborwa and Tzaneen, locked horns, but failed to beat Maruleng.