uMsunduzi Mayor says administration decision ‘long overdue’
uMsunduzi Municipality has described the KZN provincial cabinet's decision to take the city out of administration as long overdue.
The cabinet gave the municipality 14 days to submit a six-month recovery plan to the MEC for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs.
uMsunduzi had been under the administrator for more than five years.
At the same time, Mayor Mzimkhulu Thebolla admits the city’s finances are still not where it should be.
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He says the country's sluggish economic growth has an impact on the city’s finances.
"We had to take some serious steps to deal with the matters that have led to the KZN legislature that took this council under administration.
“Now it’s time for us to show what we are capable of doing in terms of our deployment. The other matter was the issue of consequence management, the backlog that was there in uMsunduzi where people would be placed in suspension but not be dealt with accordingly, we are dealing with that.”
At the same time, the Msunduzi Association of Residents, Ratepayers and Civics chairperson Anthony Walhausen says the decision to lift the administration came as a shock, as they believe the city remains dysfunctional.
"We are not getting the value of the money of the services; they’re not able to collect revenue from the services; they are not collecting the revenue that they are supposed to collect. They are billions in debt at the moment; they should have dissolved the council and have a proper administration to deal with all the problems and have free elections at a later stage."
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