Durban — Residents of eThekwini will know by the end of the month what led to the service delivery crisis in the metro.
This timeline was revealed by KwaZulu-Natal Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs MEC Reverend Thulasizwe Buthelezi during his budget speech on Tuesday.
Reporting on his interventions in the service delivery-starved eThekwini Municipality, the MEC announced that the Section 154 intervention team was wrapping up its assessment of what led to the service delivery crisis in the only metro in the province.
The team would hand over the report for presentation to the provincial executive committee at the end of the month, Buthelezi revealed.
“Honourable Speaker, I wish to address the state of our only metro in the province and our economic hub, eThekwini Municipality.
“We have implemented Section 154 intervention where we introduced the eThekwini Strategic Support Team (ESST). The team is currently developing a diagnostic report on eThekwini for presentation to the provincial executive committee by the end of August 2024.”
The MEC said the terms of reference focused on fraud, poor performance targeting, non-achievement of targets, poor commissioning of projects and shortcomings in the repairs and maintenance of infrastructure assets.
Buthelezi said the team was examining key performance areas in which turnaround recommendations were being identified.
The MEC said that included basic service delivery where the team was identifying ways to improve spending, increase capital and improve maintenance and repairs.
On municipal institutional development and transformation, he said the team was identifying ways to address vacancies, improve consequence management, competency and professionalisation.
The team was also looking at financial accountability and the sustainability of the City, good governance and public participation as well as local economic development. Buthelezi also briefed the legislature about his meeting with the eThekwini ratepayers organisations which he said gave them an earful on issues they had with the municipality.
“We are in constant engagement with the leadership of eThekwini Metro, led by (mayor) Cyril Xaba.
“Our goal is to revive our metro and restore citizen and investor confidence. We are hopeful that our engagement with the ratepayers will result in a positive outcome that will make the residents of eThekwini happy,” concluded the MEC.
The Section 154 report will also shed light on who must be held accountable for the crisis, especially the collapse of infrastructure which, among other factors, forced the City to close beaches because of high E.coli levels. The problem also led to sewage spillage in some areas.
The infrastructure collapse pitted former deputy mayor Philani Mavundla against former mayor Mxolisi Kaunda. The fight between the two, who were at the helm of the City from 2021, spilt over into the public domain.
This was after Mavundla, in his capacity as the head of Infrastructure, had discovered the two reports with recommendations for the urgent attention to waterworks plants which the City under Kaunda had allegedly ignored. He blamed Kaunda for this.
In an explosive response on WhatsApp, Kaunda hit back at Mavundla, accusing him of behaving like a mayor with only two seats. Mavundla was later kicked out of his position as the City’s number two.
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