Madam – Peace, prosperity and stability will eventually reign supreme in our municipality. The Nobel Prize laureate, William Faulkner, once said, “Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If people all over the world… will do this, it would change the earth.”
In the last few weeks residents of our municipality demonstrated their passion and realism to interrogate the truth at all material times. Our communities, from Osizweni, in Madadeni, in Blaauwbosh to our town, displayed the impeccable understating that truth never changes a just cause.
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Our just cause is to suppress corruption, nip it in the bud, before society normalises it. Those who champion the project of anti-corruption are vilified and projected to be malice to society. Fixing deliberately dismantled systems of governance will never be debated, but will be done.
It must happen, now and urgently. It is for this very same posture that those who champion this just cause are negatively branded by those who are content to turn a blind eye to looting. As a municipality, we’ve taken a stand, we won’t allow tax payer’s monies to be channelled to wrong places.
That is what residents deserve, transparency and accountable; these two values are our core principles, which ultimately set our path to proper governance. In the beginning of the year, we made a clarion call to members of our municipality to present evidence of corruption and we promised to deal with it decisively, without fear or favour. Our investigations are in full swing, and we guarantee full disclosure, and a report will be shared with members of the public.
We reiterate our call to members of our society to produce tangible evidence of corruption to law enforcement agencies, instead of publicising their claims about corruption and not doing anything about it. For us it’s grandstanding of the highest order to be speculatively opinionated about corruption, yet failing to take residents to your confidence, by producing evidence of malfeasance.
I want to give our residents the full assurance that this municipality will never be in a state of turmoil, paralyses or ever fail to deliver basic services to our people. We are delighted to announce that various units have been locked behind closed doors, to formulate strategies of tackling persistent issues that plague our society.
Last week the Department of Cooperative Governance and Tradition Affairs (CoGTA), announced that our municipality had recorded a 91% functionality of ward committees. For us this meant that we are a municipality which is not only progressive, but thrives in dialogues and festival of ideas.
We will often at times disagree, but we should never allow the temptation of violence to override civility and constructive dialogue. I urge residents, to always favour peace and stability over reckless calls to turn any peaceful protests to violence.
The municipality is unceasing in its efforts to attract investments and potential investors, as we are on a mission to make Newcastle the preferred industrial destination for global investors. Working together we can improve the lives of our residents and continue to restore the dignity which was taken away from our people by an oppressive regime which narrowed our lives to nothingness.
Newcastle Mayor, Cllr Dr Ntuthuko Mahlaba
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Email: Reveshni Douglas (Editor) at reveshni@caxton.co.za
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