THE Zululand Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ZCCI) convened at Empangeni Country Club to discuss pertinent issues facing the region.
uMhlathuze Infrastructure
Guest speaker and Manager for Spatial Environmental Planning for the city, Brenda Strachan, was unfortunately unable to attend the meeting and present her report on the maintenance of Empangeni’s taxi and bus ranks as well as public toilets.
However, ZCCI’s Christa van der Walt reported that substantial upgrades to the Ngwelezane-eSikhawini taxi rank were approved and would be carried out shortly.
It was suggested a special meeting be held to receive a full report from Brenda Strachan.
Water and drought
ZCCI Chairman, Dave Whittaker, believes the water crisis is not being dealt with efficiently, and that the municipality did not fully understand what needed to be done.
However, he reported engagements with the municipality and private companies were slowly yielding results.
Further, ZCCI’s Mike Patterson confirmed the water supply could last up to September if utilised efficiently, and the municipality was conducting a survey to accurately quantify dam levels.
The source of the funding to double the amount of water pumped from the Tugela River to Goedertrouw Dam and who would implement the project are still under discussion.
Crime and policing
Dup Hertsalman from the SAPS gave attendees a breakdown of sector policing methods, encouraging attendees to do their part to help reduce crime at grassroots level.
Dave Whittaker added that police activities are guided by statistics, and emphasised that residents open cases with the police at every incidence of crime.
He also advised that resident keep the contact numbers of private security companies at hand in case of an emergency as they would be willing to help regardless of whether the caller is a customer.
However, the 10111 crimestop number should still be used whenever possible.
