LIMPOPO PROVINCIAL OFFICE SETS THE TONE AMIDST THE PANDEMIC BY BEING THE FIRST PROVINICAL OFFICE TO HOST ITS FIRST VIRTUAL SDF FORUM

Over the past few months, South Africans have had to adapt to a new normal. Staying at
home to help contain the virus has meant changing how we structure our day and go
about living our lives. COVID-19 has also changed how we work and use technology to
bridge the distance between us. The LGSETA Limpopo Provincial Office set the tone amidst
the pandemic by being the first provincial office to host its first virtual SDF Forum.
The coordination of the District SDF Forum presented a few challenges for the provincial
office. As this was a learning curve, the SDFs concerns for not attending the meetings
ranged from the fear of technology and using the electronic mediums as a tool for
engagement. However, the team were patient and ready to step in to help with the
challenges that arose.
The Limpopo provincial office was faced with yet another quarter after failing to attain its
Provincial SDF Forum target for 2019/2020 in Quarter 4 due to the wake of the pandemic.
The LGSETA’s ICT team had already made a virtual meeting platform available (Microsoft
Teams), and quite a number of internal meetings were virtually held during lockdown. The
provincial office saw an opportunity of using the virtual meeting platform to host a virtual
Provincial SDF Forum.
Given the large number of attendees who may be required to be part of the SDF Forum,
the office was concerned about the kind of response from stakeholders who were not well
acquainted with virtual meetings. A simple and effective solution was to go on a pilot run
with a few attendees so as to introduce them to the concept of virtual meetings. A small
number also means better management and control of the meeting.
“It was not easy to get everyone on board during the SDF Forums. The reasons given by
SDFs for not attending ranged from either not being present in the province or not being in
the office but on lockdown” said Margaret Marakalala – Limpopo Provincial Manager.
After much consultation with the SDFs, it became clear that this was more of fear of
technology than anything else. However, the Limpopo provincial office team was not
discouraged at all but spent time assisting SDFs to navigate around attending the meeting
after receiving an invitation.
With much delight, Ms Marakalala expressed that once that exercise was done and the
SDFs were a lot more comfortable, an invitation for a bigger SDF Forum was sent, and
amazingly, it did not even take more than 15 minutes to get everyone joined in for the
meeting. “Our municipalities are now confident and acquainted with the virtual meetings.
We now want to start monitoring our projects using the same virtual meeting platform”
stated Ms Marakalala.

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