THE Democratic Alliance has questioned whether the KZN province should consider dissolving the Mtubatuba Municipality following ‘failed attempts’ to turnaround the municipality.
The party has called on KZN MEC for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA), Nomusa Dube-Ncube, to urgently investigate the effectiveness of an administrator appointed at the northern Zululand municipality.
The move follows allegations that there has been little progress since Province intervened three years ago.
‘We sympathise with ratepayers who clearly have had enough,’ said DA member of provincial parliament, George Mari.
‘Three years is a long time for an administrator to be in place without any significant progress. The DA expects the MEC to look into the matter. There may, in fact, be a case for dissolution,’ Mari told the Zululand Observer on Wednesday.
In response, the KZN MEC said her department had taken note of the residents’ concerns about the management of the Mtubatuba municipality.
‘This is why the provincial government placed this municipality under administration in the first place. We would like to assure residents that we will do whatever it takes to put this municipality on a sound footing and already the municipality is getting out of the woods and the ship has made a positive turnaround,’ said Dube-Ncube.
‘The St Lucia Ratepayers’ Association has been in constant communication with the administrator placed in the municipality and we wish to assure them that the municipality, whose progress we monitor and evaluate regularly, is on the path to recovery,’ said the MEC.
Improved
Mtubatuba Municipal Manager, Siya Ntuli, confirmed that the financial position at the municipality had drastically improved.
‘We had inherited an operation deficit of about R22-million when an administrator was first appointed. At the time, the municipality had also utilised a R6-million overdraft. We have now managed to settle the overdraft and there is a surplus in the budget.
‘ It cannot change overnight but we are gradually getting there,’ said Ntuli.
He said Mtubatuba was the only municipality to have achieved a 100% spend on its Municipal Infrastructure Grant (MIG) funding.
‘Service delivery is on track. It is obviously not at the pace we would have hoped owing to shortage of resources. There are also political dynamics in this municipality, but the administration has achieved a lot to date,’ Ntuli said.
