District municipality delivers IDP and Budget

Submitted by Uthukela District Municipality
UThukela District Mayor Cllr DCP Mazibuko in conjunction with the local municipalities’ mayors, councillors and officials led some memorable IDP and Budget Roadshows throughout its area of jurisdiction.
During her first run the Mayor spoke to the community of Ladysmith and Indaka since they were transported to the same venue.
As we will remember, these two local municipalities will soon form one working force (merged into one, as determined by Municipal Demarcation Board) in order to speed up service delivery to the people.
Apart from this being another means of cost-cutting measures, it was also meant to remind the community of the changes expected as a result of this conglomeration and how it will benefit them.
During her speech the Mayor, Cllr DCP Mazibuko registered her appreciation to the community for coming in numbers.
She further applauded the newly hired uThukela management for turning the municipality around within the first few months of their appointment.
“Most managers were appointed in September, but we have already witnessed amicable changes within administration.
These are the types of managers that work tirelessly in taking this municipality to the next level,” were the Mayor’s words.
She further went on to say that South Africa has a good story to tell since 1994.
Electricity supply, roads, schools, health facilities, houses etc. used to be the things most of our communities were dreaming of having before the first elections.
Nobody would have thought that this could be a reality. All these services are provided without discrimation against any political party, religion, etc.
We understand that some of the RDP houses at Ezakheni, E- Section are still without basic services and that is the reason why we are coming on May 12 to introduce a contractor for water installation. Before the end of this year we will be introducing yet another contractor for water – borne sewer system in the area.
We urge the community to use water sparingly, repair their internal leaks and to refrain from connecting water illegally. Our offices should be consulted for assistance with connections.
We have R700m budget for 2014/2015. 68,5 percent of this budget will be invested on water installation and 31,5 percent on sanitation (water borne and VIP).
As we will recall, during our last financial year we only had R400m on the table.
This increase will allow us to serve our communities even better.
We will be bringing back some of the services that were terminated because of budget constraints.
These include bursaries to financially needy and academically deserving students. We however urge applicants for bursaries to be considerate and not benefit from both local and district Municipalities as this will prevent other qualifying individuals from getting the same.
We will also, as part of job creation, hire temporal staff that will be dealing with indigency registration. We also encourage young people to use their talents and skills as this will enable them to be self-employed.
Though we a had limited budget during our last financial year, we still managed to complete sanitation projects in many wards under Imbabazane and other local municipalities.
We have also supplied the whole Indaka Local Municipality with water tanks and soon enough we will resume supplying Okhahlamba Local Municipality with the same. Community participation was amazing and their comments/ requests were noted and will be dealt with accordingly.