On the 16th of September, mayors and municipal managers from KwaZulu-Natal Municipalities were gathered at the Public Works, Mayville Conference Centre, for the quarterly meeting with the Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs MEC, Sihle Zikalala.
The Head of Department ( HOD) Thando Tubane was the program director for the meeting. The MuniMec was attended by various stakeholders including amakhosi and officials from municipalities and provincial government.
Keys among the issues that were discussed during the meeting, was the huge increase in monies owed to municipalities by various consumers which currently stand at R35.7 billion. On this item, all the mayors agreed on the importance of measures being implemented to circumvent the huge increase in debt and to find innovative ways to encourage consumers to settle their debt.
Speaking about this issue, MEC Zikalala added his voice to the call for municipalities to implement revenue enhancement measures and indicated that the department will support municipalities in all these efforts. “As municipalities, you do not have the luck of having a bottomless pit of money which you can use to deliver basic services to our communities. Consumers, therefore, have to play their part by paying for the services rendered to them.
Inkosi Shinga, the chairperson of the KZN Provincial House of Traditional Leaders (PHTL), shared some concerns from Amakhosi, he echoed the importance of Ward Committees and Traditional Councils to have a good working relationship so that the lives of the community can be bettered.
Various presentations were done by various representatives from Government Departments including the department of Transport which did a comprehensive presentation on all the work being done on roads belonging to it in the province.
The meeting also welcomed the presentations on the Expanded Public Works Programme, National Anti-Corruption Hotline cases for the province and the Ilembe District Development Plan.
Ends