Water a priority says mayor
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.”
Other issues that need to be tackled are youth unemployment and crime,” he said.
But the provision of clean, healthy water will provide his administration with its biggest challenge, he said.
The municipality’s Draft Integrated Development Plan for 2012/13 to 2016/17 put its challenge in stark perspective: “Without a proper supply of clean water the community is faced with the danger of poor health and poor quality of life.
“Statistics by Urban Econ in the study conducted in 2009 reveals only 2.64% of households in Nongoma have access to piped water inside the dwelling while 49.27% are still accessing water from rivers.”
The report further said about 10% of people living in urban areas had proper sanitation, while in the rural parts of this mainly rural municipality, more than 99% of households had no proper sanitation.
“We will work with other stakeholders so that we will be able to change the lives of the people,” Mncwango promised.
He replaced former mayor Sithembiso Mataba, who resigned. Mataba had been the mayor of the rural municipality since the August 2016 local government elections after the IFP took control from the NFP, which had governed the municipality since the 2011 elections.
It could not be immediately established why Mataba had stepped down, but Mncwango was on Thursday sworn in as a councillor and then elected as the mayor the same day in a council meeting.
Earlier in the week, he bowed out as IFP MP after having served in Parliament for 23 years. After delivering his last speech, he was given a warm send-off by colleagues from other parties, as well as by Parliament’s deputy speaker Lechesa Tsenoli.
In an interview, Mncwango described his five terms in Parliament as “a wonderful experience”.
“We started in 1994 on a high. We succeeded in establishing a rainbow nation. The economy was doing well and the world believed in us.
“I am so proud of that experience, which was given birth to by the pre-1994 Codesa (Convention for a Democratic South Africa) negotiations.”
Mncwango, who has served in various portfolio and ad hoc committees, said he had enjoyed the terms under former president Thabo Mbeki between 1999 and 2008.
“Parliament was a real institution for the people, but things fell apart in 2009 when the incumbent took over. We began to see a steady decline, loss of decorum of the House and we did not do the work for the people,” he said.
“We started to see a resurgence of corruption, a sense of entitlement and an increase in service delivery protests.”
Mncwango noted that stateowned enterprises had now become a fertile ground to enrich certain individuals. “It is a sad note,” Mncwango said when reflecting on his term as an MP.
But he said he was looking forward to his new role as the mayor.