Interventions into embattled eThekwini metro are on track, says new Cogta minister Hlabisa

The minister of cooperative governance and traditional affairs (Cogta) and Inkatha Freedom Party leader, Velenkosini Hlabisa, said on Tuesday efforts by two teams tasked with the turnaround of the embattled eThekwini metro were on the right track.  

He said that after viewing presentations of the teams’ “credible reports”, the first generated since the Presidential eThekwini Working Group and the section 154 intervention team had started — and a presentation by the eThekwini metro — he was “satisfied” with the direction of the work being undertaken.

“We are going to interrogate these reports … and in a month or two, we will come back to engage deeply on issues [in the reports] as well as the turnaround plans,” he told journalists in Durban.

The new ANC mayor of Durban, Cyril Xaba, was also in the closed meeting, but did not attend the media briefing.  

President Cyril Ramaphosa established the eThekwini Working Group in February after myriad complaints from members of the Durban Chamber of Commerce and Industry — which represents well over 3 000 formal businesses and 54 000 informal traders — as well as ratepayers associations, civil society and organised labour. 

The team is led by former MEC and former deputy ANC KwaZulu-Natal chairperson Mike Mabuyakhulu, and is expected to assist the municipality for two years. 

 The other group that presented on Tuesday was the section 154 intervention team.

Talk about a serious intervention in the metro municipality has been ongoing for years, but was consistently scuppered by the then dominant ANC in the metro and province, which also rejected those tentatively chosen to lead the intervention — former city manager Mike Sutcliffe, former director general in the presidency Cassius Lubisi and the Moses Kotane Institute’s Thandeka Ellinson.

Opposition parties were at the same time calling for a section 139 intervention, which would effectively have branded the metro as dysfunctional and in need of administration for failing its constitutional and executive obligations.

A compromise was finally reached when the opposition settled on the less debilitating section 154 intervention, proposed by the ANC, but again, there was little to no movement.

In June, following a power-sharing agreement being finalised in the province after the ANC lost its majority in the May elections, KZN’s new IFP Cogta MEC, Thulasizwe Buthelezi, said the section 154 intervention would go ahead. He said Sutcliffe and Lubisi had been appointed as the governance experts to lead the process.  

Asked on Tuesday about possible duplication of work by the two teams, Hlabisa said the presidential working group and the section 154 team should work in an “integrated” manner.

“Both the teams want to turn things around in eThekwini and make the environment conducive for business to thrive and for the municipality to provide services. From Cogta’s point of view, we will fully support the integration, the working together of all who are intervening to turn things around in eThekwini,” he said.

How this integration would specifically work was still to be considered, he said, adding that both reports addressed “core needs” such as revitalising tourism and economy in the city. That revitalisation was dependent on an “effective government”, he said, one that maintained infrastructure, could supply potable water, and keep its residents safe.

“Without addressing those key issues, business will run away.”

He said it was “a very good sign” that the latest Durban Business Confidence Index had risen to 55.49 (out of 100). The national index for the same period was 35. The Durban business confidence for the preceding quarter measured 38.42.

The improvement was attributed to the May elections and no political party gaining an outright majority, forcing parties into coalitions.

“The ease and speed with which the government was established in KZN also signalled a political commitment to servicing the province,” the business confidence report said, adding however that more than 75% of those surveyed still said that complaints about service delivery were not dealt with in a reasonable time.

The eThekwini metro has been in an escalating state of disrepair for years, with incidents of fraud, corruption, water and electricity cuts, beaches riddled with E coli and poor or non-existent service delivery making regular headlines. 

The city loses 45% of its water to leaks and waste, according to the department of water and sanitation, and neglect of infrastructure continues to hamper businesses, residents and potential investors.

According to the auditor general’s consolidated reports on municipalities, eThekwini incurred R4.8 billion in irregular expenditure and another R48.3 million in fruitless and wasteful expenditure for the 2021-22 financial year.

In 2018-19, the metro racked up R2.9 billion in unauthorised, irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure.

In late February leading into March this year, waste collection in the city came to a standstill, the result of a protracted strike by municipal employees after salary disputes that left refuse piled up in the streets and resulted in an outcry from residents and the business sector.

Prior to this, refuse collection in the city had been erratic for years, grass verges remained uncut, weed spraying was not done and thousands of streetlights were and are still not working. Crime in the city and its suburbs has been described as “out of control” by opposition parties, residents and community policing forums.   

Public trust in eThekwini interventions

Asked by the Mail & Guardian why residents and investors should trust that the recommendations made by the presidential intervention team and the section 154 team would be implemented, given the city’s treatment of the Manase report that was commissioned by KZN Cogta in 2011 and released in 2013, Hlabisa said he gained the impression on Tuesday that both teams knew the city and what they were doing.

He said he also knew the city and what was needed, because it was part of his constituency, and he would be “scrutinising the reports myself”.

“Where there is a need for consequence management, it will have to take place,” he said.

The recommendations of the section 154 report, when finalised, would be “considered” by the cooperative governance department at a provincial level, by the KwaZulu-Natal government, and the national department would also support any consequence management that needed to take place, he said.

Any other questions about the Manase report should be directed to eThekwini mayor Cyril Xaba, Hlabisa said.

Tabled in 2013, the 7050-page Manase report investigated the two terms of former ANC eThekwini mayor Obed Mlaba. Although he was singled out in the report and prima facie evidence of wrongdoing was found, Mlaba never faced any consequences, and was instead appointed South Africa’s high commissioner to the United Kingdom.

The report, which cost R15 million to compile, also found evidence of fraud within the metro police, numerous supply chain irregularities, non-disclosure of business interests for councillors and the use of by-laws to push through emergency tenders.

In 2020, then standing committee on public accounts member Mervyn Dirks, who was chairing a meeting at which the KwaZulu-Natal cooperative governance department was presenting, asked the team why it had not yet tackled “the rot” in the Manase report. The team replied that the report had been “dealt with”, but it was not sure if “consequence management” had taken place.