WARD Councillors in the City of uMhlathuze, who have not held a single public meeting in three consecutive months, will be held accountable for failure to bridge the gap between Council and their respective communities.
Four wards in the City had not held public meetings according to the quarterly report on the functionality of ward committees during the period 1 October to 31 December 2013.
Council’s policy stipulates that ward committee meetings should be held once a month and public meetings should be held once a quarter.
‘Apart from the wards that have not held public meetings, there are some wards that only had two ward committee meetings for this quarter. This is a concern and something has to be done about this matter,’ said Cllr Dumisani Nxumalo at the Exco meeting on Tuesday.
‘Who is responsible for checking these wards and Councillors, who do not hold meetings? questioned Cllr PN Kwela.
‘When meetings are not held, this needs to be rectified before it is documented in a report.’
Unacceptable
Deputy Mayor, Vera Gumbi said it was ‘unacceptable’ that certain wards did not hold meetings as prescribed by legislation.
‘This is the responsibility of the Ward Councillor. The public wants to know what is happening in their community. We do not want to have riots from the public similar to what is happening in other provinces. Follow the act and ensure there is a ward committee meeting every month. This must be strictly adhered to and there is no other way,’ said Cllr Gumbi.
During a public participation committee meeting earlier this month, concern was raised about some ward committee meetings lasting for a short period of time. Councillors were cautioned that meetings be afforded adequate running time to ensure matters of concern were attended to accordingly.
‘Ward committee members are being paid. They must attend the entire meeting and cannot just come late to sign an attendance register,’ said Cllr Gumbi.
Cllr Beena Simmadhri said some of the ward committee members had complained of not being remunerated for about eight months and this needed to be taken into consideration.
Ward committees are the legitimate structure for community participation to ensure communication between the community and municipality. Public meetings encourage the involvement of communities in matters of local government.
