High hopes for new KZN Cogta MEC
Durban — Opposition councillors in the Msunduzi Municipality are hopeful that with the Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) no longer under the ANC, the city’s service delivery woes will finally be addressed without political interference.
The province’s capital city has been under administration for six years. Cogta, under various ANC MECs, had assigned four administrators to help the city improve its poor finances and address failure to service debts, lack of service delivery performance and maladministration, which have so far improved, only slightly, according to opposition councillors.
DA councillor Ross Strachan said the city had for years been riddled with political interference from the ANC leadership.
“Their (administrators’) mandate was not to fix, but the mandate was to look like they were fixing while behind closed doors all the decisions were made by the political leadership of the ANC,” said Strachan.
Under the new multiparty provincial government, Cogta is now under IFP MEC Thulasizwe Buthelezi who took over from ANC’s Bongiwe Sithole-Moloi. Neither Cogta nor the municipality responded to questions sent to them.
The municipality had in the last 10 years been placed under administration twice. Among those who had been the city’s administrators under Section 139 (1)(b) were Johann Mettler, appointed to the position in March 2010 and replaced by Sbu Sithole in December 2011. Sithole returned in 2019 after the municipality’s performance had again regressed.
He was later replaced by Scelo Duma who left in 2022 and was replaced by Martine Sithole until April, after Cogta declared the council was technically out of administration and was placed under Section 139 (1) (a), meaning that while still under administration, it could now function without supervision.
Msunduzi was among seven municipalities listed on Cogta’s website as being under administration for several years. The Umzinyathi District Municipality has been in this position since 2016.
Strachan said he hoped that under the IFP, Cogta would not use administrators for political reasons. He said Mettler was the best administrator for Msunduzi, “but he was chased away quickly although he was on the ground doing things”.
This reporter took a walk along Langalibalele Street, the busiest street which passes the tourist attractions, Cathedral Church of the Holy Nativity, the provincial legislature and premier’s office, and Church Street, which passes the High Court. Although the streets were less filthy than usual, rubbish was piling up on pavements. Some pavements were fixed, but paving stones on others were still dislodged. A number of streets had potholes although some work had been done to fix this. Some streets were full of vagrants who could be seen doing drugs. IFP councillor Thinasonke Ntombela said although there were minor improvements, including operations at the city’s landfill site, an ordinary person walking the streets could not easily see much improvement because the city still looked shabby.
Ntombela said: “They did what they did as we were going into the elections. But we should have been taken out of Section 139 (b) if our finances and other management issues had been corrected. We have not achieved that. We are still failing to collect revenue,” he said.
Msunduzi Association of Residents, Ratepayers and Civics chairperson Anthony Waldhausen said the city was still dysfunctional, adding that if the administrators had been paid, there was no value for money.
ANC Moses Mabhida Region secretary Samora Ndlovu said the current party leadership had been working with Cogta under Sithole-Moloi to take Msunduzi out of administration.
“Msunduzi has lots of correct systems in place. As much as we are not doing the best in terms of revenue collection, we are progressing although we have not reached there in terms of service delivery,” Ndlovu added.
Independent on Saturday