MESSAGE FROM THE MAYOR, CHRIS PAPPAS
We are now in the second quarter of the first full financial year of the new administration. This started in July 1 and will end on June 30, 2023.
The roll-out of budgeted service delivery interventions for the first quarter (July to September) was slower than expected.
This was due to poor procurement planning by departments as well as slower supply chain process due to capacity (both staff capacity and knowledge of the procurement system).
Lessons have been learned from this and next year there will be interventions put in place so that there is not a gap in the rollout of service delivery.
Despite this a number of projects have been started or are almost completed. These include: • Work to make Curry’s Post Road usable. The road required more than R12 million to get up to a good standard. We are not happy with all the work and this will be redone, however, the only real way to fix this road is to spend the full amount required;
• Amber Avenue in Howick is nearing completion;
• Dick Street, Howick has started but has been delayed due to the need to do subsoil tests to determine the quality of the base layer of the road;
• Jet blasting of blocked storm water drains commenced on Monday, November 13;
• uMngeni in-house roads teams have been doing basic work on our roads including street line painting, replacing of signs and minor pothole repairs;
• Electrification projects are progressing on schedule in the rural areas. Once completed these newly electrified houses will be handed over to Eskom as new customers;
• Regravelling of a number of dirt roads has started; SANRAL continues to repair Hilton Avenue as per our memorandum of understanding;
• Pothole repairs done by contractors will be getting underway;
• Winstead Road in Hilton has been completed although we have requested for some minor improvements to the work;
• The municipality has finally got approval from Eskom to work on street lights that Eskom abandoned. These areas include Nottingham Road, Merrivale, Merrivale Heights, Howick West and Howick South. We have repaired over 1 450 streetlights in the past 11 weeks. Please note that the wet weather is having a negative impact on road repairs. Water is the enemy of roads. Doing repairs in the rain compromises the quality and durability of the repair.
We are also pleased to have improved the capacity of our municipal fleet. This will assist us to reduce contractor fees as well as attend to certain service delivery functions more consistently.
Our newest purchases include: a R7 million landfill site compactor; a R2.1 million refuse collection truck; an excavator; and a smooth vibrating roller.
In the next three to four months we have planned and budgeted to add the following vehicles: two new traffic police vehicles; two tipper trucks; a water tanker; a desludging truck; a flatbed truck; a TLB; and a padfoot roller.
Non-infrastructure related progress:
• The municipality has recently introduced an electronic building plans management system. We have started scanning thousands of paper building plans onto the system;
• We are excited that the new traffic offices and vehicle pound are nearing completion. We expect these offices to be open by the end of the year.
• On Friday, November 18, we launched our festive season readiness campaign where all departments have been set targets to ensure that December is clean, safe and fun. This is being done with our tourism partners, uMngeni Tourism
• Twenty-six micro businesses will begin work before December. The grass cutting programme aims to support small business people who own grass cutting equipment while also achieving improved service delivery;
• The municipality has completed a review of its organogram. This will allow us to reshape its internal staffing structure to
suit the vision of the new administration;
• At this point in the financial year we have spent 100% of our municipal infrastructure grant. The municipality received an award for our turn around of the expenditure of this grant.
• In the space of one year our small municipality has paid off R12 million in debt (R2 million and R10 million). This will allow us to take new loans specifically for infrastructure as well as to free up space in our budget in 2023/2024. After some delays from the Department of Minerals and Energy the roll out of 400 LED streetlights is imminent. We expect to start work at the beginning of December with the installation of 200 LED lights. These will reduce our energy consumption and provide better illumination.
The municipality has entered into memorandums of understanding with the following organisations to support the work that they do for the uMngeni communities or to comply with certain legislation.
These agreements were approved by council and advertised for public comment:
• Love Cities (Love Howick, Love Mpophomeni, Love Notties);
• Lions River Fire Protection Association (LRFPA);
• Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA). The municipality is exploring a service level agreement with the NPO known as the uMngeni Community Safety Initiative (UCSI), who are responsible for manning and maintaining the license plate recognition cameras that are dotted around the municipal area.
Some of our biggest inhibitors to rapid redevelopment and repairs are the following:
• uMngeni is owed R245 million in outstanding rates;
• Only 44% of the municipal budget comes from rates. The rest of the budget mostly comes from a grant that every municipality is given by national government
• Almost half of electricity that we pay for from Eskom is stolen by end users;
• Many of our roads require complete resurfacing and pothole patching would be considered a waste. However, roads are the most expensive thing to repair. Prices for raw materials have drastically increased over the last few months due to the war in the Ukraine and the effects on global supply chains and fuel prices.
• Large numbers of foreign nationals, who are employed locally, live in informal settlements. The law does not allow the municipality to provide these people with certain services or to build them houses. This means that these settlements will be here until the SANDF, Home Affairs, SAPS and Immigration are able to control the movement across the borders.
• The municipality lacks critical skills and does not have the financial means to fill these without compromising on the budget allocated to service delivery.
• The wet weather is making it very difficult to stick to our infrastructure repair programmes. The challenges are many and the money is tight. However, we are making progress in many areas of the municipality. While we may not see change over days there is certainly a drive to see change over time.
We thank all communities for their support and patience while the new administration continues to turn around 27 years of poor decision making, a lack of leadership, wasted funds and skewed priorities.