In the past year, thousands more Ilembe residents gained access to clean drinking water and proper toilet systems – but there is still a long way to go.
This is according to the recently released annual report which showed that the once struggling Ilembe municipality has pulled up its socks for the 2017/2018 financial year, spending about 93 percent of its budget on service delivery.
Last week, Ilembe mayor Sduduzo Gumede announced the municipality, whose core function is to provide water and sanitation services to four municipalities (KwaDukuza, Ndwedwe, Maphumulo and Mandeni) was managing to reduce backlogs on water provision, overall debt and meet most of its targets for service delivery in the district.
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But with the district’s population growing at about 1.7 percent a year, the municipality is kept on its toes, only managing to connect 601 households to water while about 2000 more residents are on the waiting list.
About 2330 households gained access to sanitation.
“Ilembe municipality’s overall performance was good with 67 percent of our targets being met, 24 percent not being met and nine percent still in progress.”
Gumede said the municipality maintained its status of functionality, indicating good financial management, governance and political stability.
Although water loss due to poor infrastructure, leaks and illegal connections showed a slight improvement of four percent from the previous year, the problem is still a reason for concern with it costing the municipality more than R40 million.
Also read: Business unease over Ilembe as investor confidence plummets
DA caucus leader Madhun Sing said while Ilembe showed improvements, an unqualified audit opinion from the auditor general meant that council was still not complying with key legislation.
“Water loss must be addressed if we are to be sustainable in the future. Illegal connections must be acted upon without fear or favour.”
Sing said while no unauthorised expenditure was recorded for the year, irregular expenditure, which comes down to not following proper supply chain processes, spiralled out of control.
“The amount increased from R8.5 million in the previous year to R45 million. Management must prevent irregular and fruitless and wasteful expenditure.
“There must be consequence management if officials are found with noncompliance.”
The municipality has adopted a five-year master plan which includes municipal audits, cutting down on budgets and addressing challenges with consumer collections which sits at just over 60 percent.
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