01/09/2026
HAPPENING NOW!
01 SEPTEMBER 2026
📍 Premier Hotel OR Tambo, Kempton Park — Gauteng Province
FROM TECHNICAL SUPPORT TO SUSTAINABLE MUNICIPAL INFRASTRUCTURE CAPABILITY
The Deputy Minister for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Dr Namane Dickson Masemola, has addressed the Municipal Infrastructure Support Agent (MISA) Strategic Reflection and Review Session at Premier Hotel OR Tambo, in Kempton Park.
The two-day interactive strategic session brought together MISA management and key stakeholders to reflect on progress in implementing the entity’s mandate and strategic priorities.
Delivering his address, the Deputy Minister emphasised that every municipality must work and that local government must ultimately translate constitutional responsibilities into tangible improvements in the lives of communities. He pointed on the importance of the cabinet approved reviewed White Paper on Local Government which seeks to modernise the local government system and respond to structural weaknesses that have emerged over the past 25 years.
Dr Masemola emphasised that for MISA, this policy direction has profound implications on the mandate, as the future of municipal infrastructure cannot be separated from the future of local government. He reflected on building a capable, ethical, developmental state as a priority of the Medium Term Development Plan (MTDP) and that we must ensure that municipalities have the technical capability to plan, deliver, operate, maintain and renew the infrastructure on which communities and local economies depend.
He further highlighted the important role of MISA which sits directly at the intersection strategically positioned between infrastructure investment and municipal capability. This is in line with the MISA mandate of providing technical advice and support to municipalities so that they can optimise infrastructure provisioning.
He emphasised the need to ensure strengthening of:
- Infrastructure planning;
- Engineering and project-management capability;
- Contract management;
- Infrastructure asset management;
- Operations and maintenance;
- Data and digital infrastructure management;
- Procurement and technical specifications; and
- Professional development and registration.
Dr Masemola indicated that there are service delivery challenges experienced by communities, but they require nothing else but a response. He added that the future of municipal infrastructure and MISA needs a diabolical balance between the mandate with capacity. This requires us to adopt a lifecycle approach to municipal infrastructure. He added that this would enable MISA to provide municipalities with a more comprehensive form of support and would strengthen its role as a centre of excellence for municipal infrastructure.
Dr Masemola emphasised that challenges must be confronted directly and that the reform of local government must be measured by whether municipalities are able to make a meaningful difference in the daily lives of citizens, We must ensure that we reflect, plan, align and integrate towards seamless implementation of the organisation’s objectives aligned to the mandate.
He concluded that the session in appreciating the mandate, must elevate MISA as a strategic entity of government to become a strategic instrument for building the infrastructure capability of the South African local state.
He emphasized that the vision must be to build a MISA that is more proactive, more strategic, more data-driven and more closely integrated with the broader reform agenda of local government. We must move from projects to systems, from construction to lifecycle management, from reactive intervention to prevention, and from dependency to institutional capability. He made a call to action for MISA to prepare to take South Africa to another level of growth, the expectation is one, to serve South African people,
