DURBAN – Community members in the uMkhanyakude District municipality are calling on parties that seize power in the municipality after the local government elections to deploy councillors that are committed to serving the community.
They said parties should ensure that they deploy individuals that have the interests of the community at heart
The functioning of the municipality has been problematic and service delivery took a back seat as the municipality was consumed by infighting over the past few years.
Among those who are calling for change in the district municipality is ANC MPL and Chair of the Finance Committee Sipho Nkosi.
His family homestead falls under this district.
UMkhanyakude, in northern KwaZulu-Natal is a huge district that stretches towards the Swaziland border, and is largely rural and poor. It has an estimated population of about 625 000.
“To send back the individuals that are currently there, would be heartless and showing cruelty to the community of uMkhanyakude District who have suffered under these individuals. These individuals have clearly shown, and it looks, that they have no interest in serving the community.
“In that area, you have the district municipality that is dysfunctional and failing to provide a service as basic as water, and you have local municipalities that are accused of delivering services according to political lines,” Nkosi said.
“Between 2019 and 2021 I have been to that municipality five times, the premier Sihle Zikalala, as well as the provincial Cogta MEC Sipho Hlomuka have also been there to try and knock some sense into those people, those people are not interested in listening.”
He said as the Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) portfolio committee, they had called for the municipality to be disbanded months ago, after it failed to meet to pass the budget.
The two big parties, the ANC and the IFP, said Nkosi, have rendered the municipality dysfunctional.
“If one of the two parties does not attend a meeting, that means the meeting will not sit, as it will be unable to form a quorum.
“I am currently campaigning in this area doing door to door and the main complaint that the community has is water.
“The municipality has a 40-megalitre water processing plant that is not serving the community because it is not connected to other infrastructure, like water pipes. I know that most of the water tankers that are meant to deliver water are broken, only one or two are working.
“I am hopeful that after the election, the deploying parties would send people who have the interest of working for the community at heart,” he said.
Sifiso Maphanga, a resident who splits his time between the district and Johannesburg, said there were many challenges in the municipality.
“Priorities are mixed up as water projects, which should come first, are non-existent. Water remains a problem in about 80% of the district and projects have been abandoned in places like Jozini, with pipes stationed there for months. It’s very sad,” he said.
THE MERCURY