EThekwini Municipality says it is committed to creating stability, giving hope to residents and fighting crime, amid the precarious financial situation being experienced by many in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.
This was revealed by eThekwini Municipality Mayor, Mxolisi Kaunda as he delivered his 10-point plan to implement the city’ s R52.3 billion 2021/22 ‘new normal’ radical socio-economic transformation budget on Thursday at Durban’s Inkosi Albert Luthuli Convention Centre. He assured residents that the city will continue to spend their hard-earned money prudently. “In this regard, we intend to keep the lights on and taps running uninterrupted, ensuring that residents get full value for money.” In addition, through the first-of-its-kind Economic Recovery Plan, the city has been able to attract over R3.4 billion in foreign direct investment through ‘catalytic’ projects. The mayor said all contributions made by communities and various stakeholders have been considered in the budget and eThekwini has increased the zonal sum of R330 million to R990 million for work in different areas. “This provision will be utilised to address concerns relating to pedestrian bridges, traffic calming measures, health hazards, sidewalks, passages, and other critical issues, more especially in the underdeveloped areas.”
Some of the areas he focused on included tariff increases of which Kaunda said have been at the lowest over the past five years. “Eskom bulk electricity increase and the Umgeni Water Board bulk water increase are out of the city’s control, but the plight of residents have been taken into consideration. Despite all the challenges, we have tried to keep the increases to affordable levels considering the tough economic climate facing our residents.” Property and refuse rates increase by 4.9 percent, water and sanitation 8.5 percent, and electricity 14.9 percent. As most eThekwini communities face service delivery issues, Kaunda said service delivery is one of the city’s top priorities. However, he did not outline how this would be achieved. But he did highlight some of the projects the city had embarked on in the last financial year. “We built 5064 houses, facilitated 2500 water connections, 8000 electrical connections, 2500 sewer connections and laid 37 kilometres of gravel to black top roads.”
The mayor went on to say that building safer communities remains a priority as this ultimately creates a positive investor climate in the city. EThekwini has invested in plans to fight crime, which include investing R69 million for smart policing. He said advanced cameras will be installed in hotspots, especially on the toll roads and gates. In this way, vehicles and criminals who are on the wanted list for various criminal activities can be identified and this will allow the SAPS to take action swiftly before another crime is committed. “Working with law enforcement, we have undertaken joint intelligence-driven operations in crime hotspots. There are specialised teams deployed in these hotspots to tackle crime. Recently, the Community Safety Forum and Local Drug Action Committee were launched. In additions, street -lighting will be improved, while an amount of R69m has been allocated towards strengthening smart policing technology.”
Kaunda said the city aims to implement, among other things, the industrial strategy to reposition Durban as a competitive global port city as well as drive the social procurement policy framework, which comprises 30% of the city’s budget. Opposition political parties were not overly happy with the budget. Thabani Mthethwa, a Democratic Alliance member of the executive committee, the main opposition in eThekwini Municipality, said they don’t support the current budget. “We don’t believe that it speaks to the reality of what the already struggling ratepayers can afford, especially if you look at the tariff increases. The municipality must not keep increasing tariffs when service delivery in the municipality is non-existent. Some streetlights have not been fixed for almost a year, it takes days to get just a simple water leak attended to. Our parks are an eyesore and in some instances there’s raw sewage flowing into people’s homes. Therefore, the increase in tariffs is not justified and we don’t support it.”
Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) eThekwini Caucus was not present in council and Mlebuka Hlengwa said this was due to ongoing preparations for the party’s regional conference coming up in two weeks. Inkatha Freedom Party’s exco member Prem Lyir said although they voted for the budget, the mayor had not touched on bread and butter issues. “As the IFP, we feel that nothing will change. It’s easy for the mayor to address capital matters. He failed to address issues of sanitation, electricity and water which are not sporadic. EThekwini is not a poor municipality. The funds are just not being used where they should be.” He said the municipality is increasing tariffs, “Why are they taking money from the residents who are already suffering, why not bring back business levy which will generate funds which can be used to replace infrastructure. If we start playing politics, only certain communities benefit whilst others don’t. The mayor also failed to address the issues of consequential management. He did not address or speak on the issues of senior managers mismanaging funds. We do, however, support the bailing out of uShaka Marine World as the business has really suffered a loss due to Covid-19. The staff of uShaka Marine are from our communities, so supporting them is a good move,” said Lyir.
