District commits to turnaround strategy
THE IFP leadership which recently took over the reins at uMkhanyakude District Municipality has assured residents it is committed to service delivery that will change their lives, despite financial constraints.
At a media briefing on Wednesday, newly-elected Mayor Tim Moodley said, although the new IFP leadership had been stalled from taking its rightful place at the helm of the municipality, which was justified by the outcome of last year’s elections, there was still an ‘opportunity to improve the lives of the people of uMkhanyakude’.
Moodley said during his seven-month stint as district mayor before last year’s elections, he had visited the municipality’s various projects and found a ‘shocking state of affairs’.
The new mayor said the municipality has failed to deliver on its core mandate of water supply, but made assurances that a turnaround strategy would be devised.
Moodley requested the new leadership be given time to investigate major concerns within the municipality, and to deal with reports from various departments which reveal the cause of the failure to deliver basic needs.
‘We need to find out what is going on,’ Moodley said.
With 84.4% of the district’s population living below the breadline, Moodley said it is important that the municipality plays a role in changing people’s lives.
‘It is not only money that is needed, but commitment, sacrifice, dedication and hard work so we can bring back dignity to the lives of the people of uMkhanyakude; people who have been neglected,’ Moodley said.
He also undertook to ensure good governance at the municipality, and that it achieves a clean audit.
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Moodley dismissed as rumours reports that there had been ‘instability’ at the municipality following the IFP’s dramatic takeover last week.
At some stage, Moodley and his cohorts were locked out of the municipality and a vehicle said to be of a security company, loaded with firearms, was taken to the police station for the verification of the legality of these firearms.
What Moodley described as ‘rumours’ reportedly prompted Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) MEC Sipho Hlomuka to request an urgent meeting with the municipality’s new leadership on Thursday.
‘There is no noise, there is order; everyone is doing what they are meant to be doing,’ said Moodley on Wednesday.
Responding to allegations that the
IFP had not followed procedure when it wrote a petition calling for a council sitting, which subsequently ousted the ANC, recently-appointed acting municipal manager Mxolisi Nkosi said, according to Section 29 of the Municipal Structures Act, when the majority of council members request the council speaker to convene a meeting, the speaker ‘must’, he emphasised, accede to that request.
‘If the speaker does not do that, he or she is breaking the law,’ Nkosi said.
Moodley said it is important to change the lives of the mostly poor population