Slick City scoops top awards

BRINGING home the grand prize of R1-million to be ploughed back into the community, the City of uMhlathuze bagged an impressive hat-trick of accolades during the Municipal Service Excellence Awards in Durban on Friday.

The City won the ‘best performing clean audit municipality’, the ‘best municipality providing all basic services’ and the ‘best innovative infrastructure project’.

Hosted by the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA), the local municipality was lauded for its ability to provide services through its sophisticated technical operating centre and innovative surveillance and monitoring stations.

This equipment assessed among others levels in the various reservoirs and the City’s large sewage network.

Adding to the COGTA trophies, the City also won the ‘Clean Audit’ award at the recent Institute of Municipal Finance Officers (IMFO) conference.

‘Our budget has been described as ‘credible, funded and relevant’ by National Treasury.

‘Chief Financial Officer Mxolisi Kunene was also acknowledged for his effective leadership in managing the City’s finances,’ said Municipal Manager Dr NJ Sibeko.

The City’s winning streak continued with the announcement that Alkantstrand had retained its blue flag status while the eNseleni, KwaDlangezwa and Ngwelezane water treatment works obtained the Green Drop award.

The municipality’s Integrated Development Plan (IDP) has also been placed among the top in the province for the 2013/14 financial year.

‘This is the best municipality. There is no other municipality like ours. We are so proud to receive these awards,’ said Deputy Mayor Vera Gumbi at Tuesday’s Exco sitting.

‘We thank Dr Sibeko and his team as well as the stakeholders and citizens of uMhlathuze.

‘We are responding to feedback from the community to do better.

‘We are doing very well except for the low spend on capital projects, which ended on 54% for the last financial year.

‘We know there will be an improvement this year.’

‘ We expect the municipality to grow and move forward because it is properly managed,’ Speaker Mvuseni Mnqayi said.

Dr Sibeko said a business plan would be submitted in the next two weeks to ensure the money was utilised for basic services, as it ‘belongs to the citizens’.

‘This is as a result of the co-operation between the administration and the political leadership of the municipality.

‘We believe there is much room for improvement. We are happy with the achievement but we are not complacent.

‘We do not just want to be good but we want to be a great municipality.’