The Democratic Alliance (DA) in KZN will be writing to Msunduzi Council Speaker, Eunice Majola requesting an investigation into the alleged misconduct by municipal officials who are not following statutory legislation by sidelining DA Ward 33 Councillor, Suraya Reddy, in the rollout of Covid-19 ward relief measures.
For the provincial rollout of the Covid-19 mobile testing units programme that took place yesterday in the Jika Joe area where the KZN Premier, MECs and Mayors were present, neither the Mayor’s office nor the Speaker of Msunduzi had informed the DA ward councillor of this programme. The councillor received no response from the Mayor when she messaged him to enquire about the possible rollout.
This was the second incident of this kind. ANC Mayor, Cllr Mzimkhulu Thobella has been in the area distributing food without the Ward Councillor present. On Tuesday the ANC’s corruption and mismanagement reared its head when residents in the area started to complain that people were already receiving their second and third food hampers while others were still waiting.
We are disappointed by the ANC using this pandemic for political scoring.
We believe that the ANC in KZN is using the pandemic as a political leveraging mechanism to render patronage to ANC cadres. We call upon the ANC to end this practice immediately.
The ANC needs to understand that these are desperate times and many families are destitute and in need of both the testing opportunities as well as food hampers that are being distributed by the government. This should not be exclusively for ANC card-carrying cadres.