ActionSA welcomes Section 154 intervention in beleaguered eThekwini metro

10 May 2023

ActionSA welcomes the invoking of Section 154 of the Constitution in troubled eThekwini Metro Municipality which allows:

“The National Government and Provincial Governments, by Legislative and other measures, must support and strengthen the capacity of municipalities to manage their own affairs, to exercise their powers and to perform their function.”

It is no secret that the eThekwini Metro faces a number of challenges and weaknesses both politically and administratively which has resulted in crumbling infrastructure, lack of basic service delivery, unauthorised and irregular expenditure, failure to spend grants on time, as well as the lack of consequence management among other issues.

For example, the Municipality has failed on numerous occasions to provide an action plan on how they are planning to use their R1.5 billion grant from National CoGTA to fix dilapidated sewage infrastructure in the Municipality after the April 2022 floods that devastated eThekwini which continues to wreak havoc o the city to date.

Unfortunately, it has become evident that the Municipality is led by a team of fibbers who boldly stated that an action plan is complete, however, funds are absent, once funds were made available to the Municipality, their tune changed and the action plan is now absent after funds were made available.

The administration of the Municipality is failing to provide a simple action plan which should have been made available to us on the 30 April 2023 as per the representatives of the municipality’s promise to us during the mediation they requested.

Surprisingly, the Municipal’s representatives requested an extension for the submission, citing “Unforeseen emergencies unfolded which are beyond our client’s control (eg: a power station in Ntuzuma area exploded)”.

It made no sense to us as to why officials whom are tasked to draft an action plan would be interrupted to do so by an explosion in Ntuzuma when they are not the ones who should be fixing the power station.

There is lack of appreciation amongst Municipal leaders for the dire state the Metro is in, and while political parties such as the EFF and NFP give their unwavering support to the ANC to continue leading the Municipality into the ground, we are cautiously optimistic that the former Director-General in the Presidency, Mr Cassius Lubisi, who is set to spearhead the intervention, will result in the some positive interventions to improve the running of the Municipality.

Issued by Zwakele Mncwango, ActionSA KwaZulu-Natal Chairperson, 10 May 2023