The Democratic Alliance (DA) in KZN reiterates our calls for the urgent dissolvement of the uMkhanyakude District Municipality council.
This comes after further failures to effectively manage the municipality. Internal political tension between the IFP and the ANC has now caused the municipality’s functionality to completely collapse and has left hundreds of staff unpaid. This has resulted in services such as the electricity and water departments coming to a grinding halt.
The DA visited schools in the uMkhanyakude District Municipality this past week where it was discovered that a shocking total of 305 schools do not have water due to the municipality’s failure to appoint a service provider. This is a violation of basic human rights. The municipality has failed on more than one occasion to pass their budget and has recently missed the 30 June deadline for the submission of their budget to treasury.
Due to the negligence of the ANC and IFP, the municipality is now unable to access funds to pay all their municipal staff. This has now critically affected service delivery and severely affected the residents.
The political jostling for power between the IFP and the ANC in this district has been ongoing for the past two years. The leaders of the municipality need to be removed and replaced with people who are capable of running it effectively. Bad management and ineffective leadership, stemming from the ANC and the IFP, has caused a catastrophic disaster.
The ANC and the IFP need to step aside and voters must reject them in the upcoming Local Government Election and give the DA the mandate to govern this municipality. With a fresh and steady mindset and exceptional leadership, the DA without a doubt will get the council back on its feet to improve service delivery and do a much better job than the ANC and the IFP have ever attempted to do.
It is quite clear that the ANC-led KZN government does not have the political will to take decisive action against its members but instead wait until it is too late to intervene. The DA has continuously raised the issue of uMkhanyakude with both the MEC of CoGTA and the Premier but neither have the gumption to do what should have been done months ago.
The DA calls on the KZN Premier, Sihle Zikalala, to urgently attend to the matters at the uMkhanyakude District Municipality instead of focusing on less trivial matters in the province. The Premier should learn from the DA because where we govern, we get things done.