New mayor prioritises clean water

ALBERT MNCWANGO, the newly-elected mayor of Nongoma Municipality, has identified the provision of clean water as one of his priorities in this water-scarce northern KwaZulu-Natal council.

“I was born and bred in Nongoma, and water is a priority here – as much as electricity and roads are,” he said

Other issues that need tackling were youth unemployment and crime, Mncwango said, but provision of clean, healthy water would be his administration’s biggest challenge.

The municipality’s Draft Integrated Development Plan for 2012-13 to 2016-17 put its challenge in stark perspective: “Water is life and without a proper supply of clean water the community is faced with the danger of poor health and poor quality of life.”

“Statistics provided by Urban Econ in the study conducted in 2009 reveals that only 2.64% of the households in Nongoma have access to piped water inside the dwelling, while 49.27% are still accessing water from the rivers.”

The report also said about 10% of people living in urban areas had proper sanitation, while in rural parts of this mainly rural municipality, more than 99% of households had no proper sanitation.

“We will work with the other stakeholders so that we will be able to change the lives of the people,” Mncwango promised.

Mncwango replaced former mayor Sithembiso Mataba, who resigned. Mataba had been mayor since the August 2016 local government elections, after the IFP took control from the NFP, which had governed the municipality since the 2011 elections.

While it could not be immediately established why Mataba had stepped down, Mncwango was on Thursday sworn in a councillor, then elected as mayor the same day in a council meeting.

Earlier in the week, he bowed out as the IFP MP after having served in Parliament for 23 years. After his last speech, he was given a warm send-off by colleagues from other parties and by Parliament’s Dputy Seaker Lechesa Tsenoli.

In an interview, Mncwango described his five terms in Parliament as “a wonderful experience”. “But things fell apart in 2009 when (President Jacob Zuma) took over.”