EThekwini Mayor reflects on first year in charge

IT has been a year since Mxolisi Kaunda was appointed Mayor of Durban.

As Kaunda sat down to start his recent media briefing, reporting back on his 365 days in office, there were already reports of Hawks raiding the houses of eThekwini Municipality officials.

Kaunda, who was appointed after Zandile Gumede resigned last year along with other councillors on suspicions of corruption, addressed the raid in the middle of his speech.

He said he welcomed any efforts to curb corruption in the city and asked for the law to take its course.

“We are a city that permanently subscribes to the rule of law. In the event of any wrongdoing, no one must impede our law enforcement agencies to do their work,” he said in a statement.

“We have a responsibility of ensuring that every cent of taxpayers’ money goes towards service delivery.”

Much of the briefing focused on corruption and government.

Kaunda said the city loses about R250 million due to faults resulting from illegal electricity connections.

“To prevent this criminal behaviour, the City has embarked on an intensive programme to allow residents to apply for electricity installation through proper channels,” he said.

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There were also some successes that Kaunda touted, like the ongoing R2 billion Western and Northern aqueduct project that will bring consistent water supply to many Durban residents once completed.

The city has also allocated R140 million to repair stormwater drains and other infrastructure that contribute to the city consistently getting flooded after heavy rains.

Kaunda said the city has reduced the number of transit camps from 71 to 45 with 42 already earmarked for land.

The mayor also announced plans to curb congestion at Durban ports, including additional lanes on the M7 Solomon Mahlangu Drive and the development of the long touted Cato Ridge Intermodal Hub.

In terms of fighting crime in the city, Kaunda said the city is planning on constructing a “Government mall” in the Point Precinct.

The mall will be a shared facility for law enforcement agencies. The mayor was mum on the timelines for the various projects.

Covid-19 decimated the city’s revenue collection abilities with a historic low of 56 per cent in April.

Kaunda reported that due to easing of Covid-19 regulations, the city is back on track in the 90 per cent region for the past three months despite giving debt write-offs to some customers.

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The mayor also addressed projects that have stalled like the GO!Durban and the establishment of a public bus entity. Kaunda said mediations are underway between taxi and bus representatives as political infighting was the major cause for the delay along with some technical difficulties.

EThekwini Municipality was among the leading metros in terms of irregular expenditure (R2.4 billion) according to the recently released reports by the auditor general.

Sipho Cele, the city’s interim city manager, who was appointed after his predecessor Sipho Nzuza was suspended on corruption allegations, said they have been working hard to effect consequence management.

Cele said they have reduced the backlog of disciplinary cases from 333 to 164, arising from investigations and the reports by the City’s Intergrity and Investigations Unit.

“Some have been dismissed, some have been sanctioned in terms of loss of salary for two weeks and other sanctions provided for in the labour systems,” he said.

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At the time of going to press, the contents of this feature mirrored South Africa’s lockdown regulations.

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