Spatial transformation would be one of the key priorities for the Gauteng Provincial Government over the next five years and beyond, Gauteng Premier David Makhura said on Friday, stating that the government wanted to overcome spatial apartheid planning, to reindustrialise, green and modernise the province.

Delivering the Office of the Premier’s Budget Vote speech, Makhura said this would require the institutionalisation of the Gauteng Infrastructure Coordination Council along the lines of the Presidential Infrastructure Coordination Commission.

He added that social and economic infrastructure was at the centre of his administration’s programme to create jobs and meet the social needs of the people of Gauteng.

He said the province’s current arrangements and policy initiatives, which included the proposed Gauteng Development and Planning Bill would have to reflect the provincial government’s mandate and responsibilities.

The Office of the Premier had a responsibility to ensure the research agenda within the provinces supported the provincial government’s vision for a sustainable city region, which required that the office continue to build internal capacity and create a network of partner institutions.

“Our plan to strengthen planning is linked to driving province-wide outcome-based performance management and planning. This will enable us to intervene where there is sustained underperformance, and respond where there are red lights in the delivery of services and hold someone accountable,” Makhura stated.

He added that these interventions, which would also ensure support for community–government interaction, would be supported by citizen- or community-based monitoring to improve the delivery of frontline services in the province.

“These monitoring interventions will support our initiative to conduct unannounced visits and rapid response to community issues and concerns,” he said.

Over the next five years, the provincial government would also work towards the development of a new community policing model aimed at improving relations between the community and the police, and would involve the development of policing priorities with the community themselves.

The Premier said community policing forums would be refocused towards oversight of police stations and becoming a proper link between stations and communities.

“I will be meeting the MEC of Community Safety, the provincial Commissioner of Police and the senior management of law enforcement agencies to strengthen our strategy to fight crime and build a safe and secure province,” he said.