EDITOR – The Democratic Alliance in eThekwini is concerned about the cancellation of an Exco meeting scheduled last week.
What is more concerning is the reason behind this cancellation. Instead of meeting to discuss matters of service delivery within the City, the eThekwini leadership decided to open the Umgeni Junction. While we feel that the Umgeni is one of the legacy projects, we strongly believe the opening was not an urgent matter and delaying the Exco meeting is serious undermining of the citizens of eThekwini.
There are many burning issues that we need answers to that concern accountability. We ask, where is the fairness when meetings that are supposed to pave a way forward so that services can be delivered are cancelled? Once again the City is showing how detached they have become from the people. How can opening a bridge be of more importance than a meeting to discuss issues concerning the people?
We suspect that a newspaper article last week on Zandile Gumede, one of the contenders in the fierce battle for the ANC leadership in the region of eThekwini, who came guns blazing with her “I know I will win” attitude, has something to do with the cancellation. This is a continuation of the war for a leadership position between James Nxumalo and Zandile Gumede. The two are avoiding meeting each other as the tension is clear for all to see.
While this war for positions is playing out, service delivery has halted indefinitely. We can give hundreds of examples of service delivery projects that have stalled because of the infighting between the two camps in the Municipality. Many contracts are not renewed or approved because the camps are on a mission to prove that one cannot do the job. Every contract that comes from the department of another camp is scrutinised and sometimes not approved to make the one camp or leader look incompetent.
All of these are examples of government failure. The needs of the people are completely ignored by the power hungry leaders in the ANC run Metro and state resources are used to fight the battles.
People are denied an opportunity to get access to proper service delivery while this infighting continues.
We are calling on the KZN MEC for COGTA Nomusa Dube- Ncube to do a full assessment on the status of eThekwini.
We are aware that the SACP ANC alliance is ‘fake’ in the Municipality and it is contributing to non-delivery.
We are committed to holding the City accountable for all the things that are not done and that should be done in a country that is free and democratic.
Zwakele Mncwango
DA Caucus Leader, KZN
