Another jaunt for employees at OR Tambo

Municipality defends five-day KZN junket

OFFICIALS at an Eastern Cape municipality headed off to KwaZulu-Natal for a five-day junket less than two months after returning from a trip to Mpekweni Resort.

R Tambo district municipality officials and some councillors have spent much of the last two quarters of the financial year at out-of-town venues discussing turnaround plans instead of holding them in the municipality’s area of jurisdiction.

The municipality has five local municipalities of which three – Port St John’s, Ngquza and Nyandeni – boast secluded seaside resorts suitable for conferencing.

Earlier this year mayor Nomakhosazana Meth took her top executives to East London for a three-day stay at Hemingways Hotel and just a few days after this trip, more officials and councillors were whisked away to the warmer Wild Coast Sun in Mzamba for a four-day municipal strategic planning session.

A few weeks after this the district municipality’s water services department took its officials to Mpekweni Resort for five days where they spent some of their time wearing fat suits for sumo wrestling.

At the time, the water services portfolio head Madodana Socikwa defended the trip saying newly-appointed director Owen Hlazo needed to get to know the department and its staff better.

This time around Hlazo’s team will spend five days in Port Edward at the Edwardian Hotel.

Hlazo said the trip to Mpekweni was to plan on how to spend the municipality’s leftover budget before June, which is the end of the 2013-14 financial year.

“This [to Port Edward] planning session is different. We have a budget of R1.2-billion that we need to spend in the next financial year.

“We are here to plan how we are going to spend it within the financial year; on which projects.

“We are also developing a procurement plan for the year ahead,” added Hlazo.

Municipal manager Tshaka Hlazo (not related) said the department had informed him there were no suitable venues in Mthatha and surrounds.

Council speaker Robert Nogumla could not be reached for comment.