New mayor identifies water provision as priority

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.

“Remember, 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 to be tackled are youth unemployment and crime,” Mncwango said. But it is the provision of clean, healthy water that will provide his administration with its 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 households within Nongoma have access to piped water inside the dwelling while a majority of the households (49.27%) are still accessing water from the rivers.

“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 from the post. 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.

While it could not be immediately established why Mataba had stepped down, 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.

Mncwango described his five terms in Parliament as “a wonderful experience”.

“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.

He said state-owned enterprises had now become a fertile ground to enrich certain individuals and he was looking forward to his new role as mayor because “they need my leadership”.