MEC must give metro urgent attention

NEWLY appointed Local Government and Traditional Affairs MEC Fikile Xasa, visited Nelson Mandela Bay on Monday July 14. The aim of the engagement was to discuss the state of our metro, and the provision of possible assistance and support from his department.

The DA left the meeting with mixed feelings as Xasa was not clear as to precisely what level of support the metro can expect from his department. This notwithstanding the fact that Nelson Mandela Bay unfortunately still faces a plethora of critical challenges.

The Eastern Cape has some of the worst performing municipalities in the country today. According to the recently released 80/20 Local Government Report issued by the South African Institute of Race Relations, eight out of the 10 worst performing municipalities in South Africa are Eastern Cape municipalities.

(Coincidentally six out of the 10 best run municipalities are situated in the Western Cape).

It stands to reason therefore that local government in this province requires someone who is willing to challenge the status quo and not someone who will offer the people of the Eastern Cape more of the same over the next five years. Nelson Mandela Bay remains in dire need of the assistance of the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) as the metro administration remains trapped largely in a state of paralysis.

Notwithstanding the fact that progress has been made with regard to the appointment of senior managers within the institution, many departments remain dysfunctional with the obvious knock-on effect for service delivery.

During the past 2013-2014 financial year the administration only managed to spend just more than 80% of its capital budget. In a city with our challenges this is simply unacceptable.

Some other critical challenges still facing Nelson Mandela Bay are:

ýThe Integrated Public Transport System (IPTS) remains dead in the water. The pilot project remains an absolute disaster.

Five years and more than R1-billion later, we are still no closer to getting this project off the ground;

ýNelson Mandela Bay still has in excess of 20000 bucket toilets in use. This constitutes more than 10% of all bucket toilets still in use in South Africa today;

ýAccording to our Integrated Development Plan (IDP) we have a housing backlog of 80000 units to be built. Even more concerning is the fact that 39000 houses, which equates to more than half of all houses that have been built in Nelson Mandela Bay post-1994, are falling down and in dire need of rectification;

ýGovernment departments owe the administration tens of millions of rands which continues to hamper service delivery. Our intergovernmental relations committee very often struggles to make progress with especially provincial departments in this regard;

ýFraud and corruption remains rampant in the institution as there is just no political will to deal with the outcome of forensic investigations and audits.

Against this backdrop the DA is further concerned that the MEC has simply failed to respond to two letters addressed to him by our caucus within the last three weeks.

His predecessor was notorious for failing to respond to any correspondence sent in our capacity as the official opposition in the metro carrying the mandate of nearly half of all voters in the city.

This lackadaisical attitude often forced the DA to forward subsequent requests for interventions and assistance directly to the National Treasury and/or the cooperative governance and traditional affairs minister.

The DA sincerely hopes that we will be able to build a better working relationship with Xasa than we enjoyed with his predecessor.

We trust that Xasa realises that his first priority should unambiguously be good governance and improved service delivery within local government.

Opposition parties have a legislated responsibility to play a pivotal role in highlighting any maladministration and corruption, and in reporting any such occurrences to his office.

Xasa should welcome such actions as it would assist him in his endeavours to improve local government in our province in line with his ministerial mandate.

Retief Odendaal, leader of the opposition, NMBM