If Bhisho is not coughing up the money to manage and maintain public libraries in Nelson Mandela Bay, a strong message should be sent to it by shutting the doors of all the facilities.
This was the view of Bay municipal director of sports Charmaine Williams, who said officials were frustrated at the provincial government palming off its responsibility to the city.
The 25 public libraries in the Bay are meant to be a provincial government competency.
But for years the metro has had to cough up money as the funding from Bhisho was not always forthcoming.
They also want money for libraries to be transferred from the national Treasury directly to the city rather than it going via the provincial department of sports, recreation, arts and culture.
At the city’s sports, recreation, arts and culture committee meeting, Williams said several meetings with Bhisho had not yielded the desired outcome.
“There have been meetings held at a provincial level where we have had this matter on the table.”
Williams said officials had escalated the matter to Treasury as they were told they were spending too much money on libraries which was a provincial government competency.
“This is an ongoing process of engagement until maybe we do the same thing that Buffalo City Municipality did where they closed all their libraries.
“Maybe that would generate the necessary action of reaction,” Williams said.
But portfolio chairwoman Siyasanga Sijadu disagreed, saying the libraries would remain open.DA councillor Samantha Beynon suggested the committee paid a visit to some of the libraries.
“We want to implement an E-libraries programme which is brilliant, but at the same time, we have libraries that are closed.
“We have libraries that are open for half hours and we have libraries that don’t have access to WiFi for these E-libraries to even be accessible for the people to benefit,” Beynon said.
“This is not sustainable in the medium to long term. We are investing money and yet our libraries are in the state that they are in.”
Arts and culture director Veliswa Gwintsa said it had met with the city’s IT department in an attempt to provide WiFi to more libraries.
“We want to see how the municipality can try to take over [the mandate of library services] and make sure the municipality doesn’t suffer,” Gwintsa said.
She said the WiFi that was provided at a municipal level did not cover all of the libraries.
“This is a critical service, but the issue of governance and the provincial mandate does need to be urgently attended to,” Gwintsa said.
Sijadu said they hoped to get results with the new MEC for sports, recreation, arts and culture, Buyelwa Tunyiswa, at the helm.
“We have been writing to then MEC Pemmy Majodina and we have not been met with any positive response regarding this matter.”
The spokesman for the provincial department, Andile Nduna, said it released the R15-million grant to the city when it received all compliance documents, including expenditure reports and business plans.
“The delays come about because the compliance documents don’t reach provincial government on time.”