Technical difficulties mar Durban municipality’s council budget debate
After much deliberation and some technical difficulties, EThekwini city council passed the city’s 2020/21 budget.
![](https://images.caxton.co.za/wp-content/uploads/sites/49/2020/05/camera-1219748_1920.jpg)
ETHEKWINI full council adopted the R49-billion budget on Friday night following a contentious virtual meeting.
The virtual meeting was marred by a myriad of technical difficulties and loud background noise from councillors not muting their microphones.
Nicole Graham, Democratic Alliance eThekwini caucus leader, was cut off a number of times when she was speaking.
ALSO READ: Cash-strapped eThekwini puts staff’s June salaries at risk
Graham accused the city officials of intentionally sabotaging the live feed which prompted the DA to ‘walk out’ of the meeting.
“I asked the speaker to pause the session and sort out the technical difficulties but she was more interested in wanting to move on,” she said.
“We do have to check whether it is constitutional to not allow councillors to speak. You cannot cut duly elected councillors off at will.”
Although the DA didn’t vote, they were poised to vote against the bill due to the high tariffs and “immoral” salary increases for senior city officials.
Belinda Scott, Deputy Mayor of Durban, said they were not prepared to discuss the issue of wages any further with opposition parties.
In his opening address, Mxolisi Kaunda, Durban Mayor focused on the city’s successes in the past four years.
ALSO READ:Durban Municipality offers payment incentive for customers in arrears
Kaunda, who was appointed following the stepping down of Zandile Gumede due to corruption charges, said the city will be working hard to root out corruption in its tender systems.
“A turnaround plan, with clear time frames has been developed to address the case backlog of officials who are implicated in wrongdoing with a view of applying consequence management,” he said.
After more than five hours of deliberations, the budget was passed with 126 for and 10 against.
Recommendations of the budget go into effect on 1 July.
Caxton Local Media Covid-19 reporting
Dear reader,
As your local news provider, we have the duty of keeping you factually informed on Covid-19 developments. As you may have noticed, mis- and disinformation (also known as “fake news”) is circulating online. Caxton Local Media is determined to filter through the masses of information doing the rounds and to separate truth from untruth in order to keep you adequately informed. Local newsrooms follow a strict pre-publication fact-checking protocol. A national task team has been established to assist in bringing you credible news reports on Covid-19.
Readers with any comments or queries may contact National Group Editor Irma Green (irma@caxton.co.za) or Legal Adviser Helene Eloff (helene@caxton.co.za).
Do you want to receive news alerts via Telegram? Send us a message (not an sms) with your name and surname to 060 532 5535.
You can also join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
PLEASE NOTE: If you have signed up for our news alerts you need to save the Berea Mail Telegram number as a contact to your phone, otherwise you will not receive our alerts
Here’s where you can download Telegram on Android or Apple.