ETHEKWINI Municipality’s executive committee held a meeting last week, chaired by Mayor Mxolisi Kaunda and attended by members of the executive committee, where reports of the City being in financial difficulty were debunked.
Speaking at the meeting, Councillor Kaunda assured the public that the Municipality remained committed to creating a safe and secure environment for all residents and that the City was not in financial crisis as reported in the media recently.
Deputy City Manager of Finance, Dr Krish Kumar, explained that the City has always been transparent regarding its financial reporting and although the pandemic has affected the City’s cash on hand the City still maintained a 32-day creditor payment rate.
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He said the City is expected to take time to regain its healthy financial state as a result of Covid-19, however, prudent measures have been implemented and expenditure is being carefully monitored.
A presentation on the Mid-term economic assessment was made by the Economic Development Unit and highlighted global growth rates by the World Bank (4,0 per cent) and the International Monetary Fund (5,3 per cent).
These are as a result of multiple Covid-19 waves, as well as the global vaccine rollout.
A major concern for the City is the forecast of the construction sector which is predicted to remain stagnant up until 2022.
Projections for the City also show that intervention would be required for certain manufacturing sectors such as clothing, textiles and furniture to recover while the foods and metals sectors are forecasted to grow positively in the coming months.
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The City has however through the implementation of the Economic Recovery Plan encouraged investor and developer growth by wavering development application fees until the end of June.
This has positively impacted the number of new construction applications for the last financial year with October 2020 recording the highest number of new applications approved (195) in this month since 2016.
As per the mid-term assessment the second wave of the pandemic had the most impact on wholesale and retail, manufacturing construction and tourism and travel which would need much intervention.
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Despite the pandemic, the City has attracted R3.5 billion in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) for the 2020/2021 financial year.
Toyota was Durban’s main investment amounting to R2.43 billion.
The first draft of Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 of the Integrated Development Plan (IDP) 2021/22 was tabled at the Executive Committee meeting for noting.
The draft IDP will be published for public comment and consultation in conjunction with the draft budget 2021/22 at the end of March.
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