KwaZulu-Natal Premier Senzo Mchunu has warned that the provincial government will not hesitate to intervene in any municipality to ensure speed in the delivery of service. He is currently visiting municipalities across the province to assess service delivery. He spent few days in Umkhanyakude and on Tuesday is scheduled to visit Nongoma.
“I am pleased that I have found uMtubatuba a better place today than it was a few months ago when the provincial government instructed COGTA to step in and restore the delivery of essential services to the residents of this municipality under an administrator.”
“The municipality’s capacity to spend on its Municipal Infrastructure Grant has improved as it spent 92.4 percent of its 2012/2013 allocated municipal infrastructure grant budget of R25, 4 million.There is also tremendous progress in respect of its 3-year medium term expenditure framework commitments for municipal infrastructure grant which is now above 100 percent.”
This means the municipality is in a state of readiness as regards future capital projects. Such state of readiness will enable the municipality to implement projects without delay as its project management capacity has been improved through enhanced capacity and focus.
Furthermore, the intervention has enabled the municipality to ring fence infrastructure funding, so that the temptation which has troubled the municipality before of utilising municipal infrastructure grant for operating costs has been eliminated.” Waste management has been one of the municipality’s major service delivery weaknesses as it operates illegal waste dump sites.
Apart from the huge penalties amounting to multi millions of Rand that were about to be imposed on the municipality by the Department of Environmental Affairs due to non-compliance with environmental pieces of legislation, the state of health of communities in close proximity to the dump sites was also at high risk. It is heartening to note that a Waste Management Unit has been established to deal with such issues.
The unit is currently undertaking an Integrated Waste Management Plan and municipal by-laws in this regard have been developed and public participation process has been finalised. A clean town summit has been held recently and clean-up campaigns have been conducted.
During the past festive season, the sewerage crisis in Nordale / Honeydale and KwaMsane reached unbearable levels and the affected community members were subjected to live in squalor and untold health hazards.
To address this quagmire, Mtubatuba Municipality approached uMkhanyakude District Municipality as water and sanitation services form part of district functions. Whereas the water and sanitation challenge is not yet over in uMkhanyakude in general and in Mtubatuba in particular, it is heartening to note that the “the issue of the provision of water and sanitation services to the community is critical".
I wish to report that a contractor is now due to commence with relaying a sewer pipeline.The cost thereof will be R1, 2 million. Some households in certain areas had no water meters but these meters will be installed by the end of December.
To address the sanitation crisis in KwaMsane, the sewer pipeline needs to be replaced as the infrastructure is heavily depressed there.vandalism manifesting itself in illegal water connections by some households committed on the water pipeline from KwaBhoboza to KwaMsane reservoir has seriously compromised water supply to the area.
The uMkhanyakude District Municipality has set aside a budget allocation of R6 million to install a new water pipeline. An intergovernmental solution will have to be found, as a matter of urgency and importance, to address the R10 million budget shortfall on this project. The Department of COGTA will have to play a coordinating role in this regard.
“As the municipality does not have a Comprehensive Infrastructure Plan (CIP), the provincial treasury’s crack team has been mandated to develop the CIP for Mtubatuba Municipality.This will enable the municipality to address its infrastructure needs in a more coherent and sustainable manner. Operations and maintenance will receive focal attention.”
Enquiries:
Ndabezinhle Sibiya, spokespeson
Cell: 082 375 4742
