Ethekwini Mayor’s Boast Out Of Touch With Reality

eThekwini mayor Mxolisi Kaunda’s message of welcome to delegates at last week’s Transformation Summit (The Mercury, March 1)is both ironic and disingenuous, particularly with regard to the slogan he boasts –“By 2030 eThekwini will be Africa’s most caring and liveable city.”

Before 2012 the date on that slogan was 2020. But then the ANC mandarins realised achieving their objective by 2020 was unrealistic, so they moved the goalpost to 2030. With seven years to go, they really need to scrap the slogan altogether because conditions in eThekwini are worse now than in 2012 and indeed appear irreversible.

For the mayor to describe Durban as a “beautiful city” simply does not accord with reality. Crumbling infrastructure, filthy pavements, gutters featuring plant growth, clogged stormwater drains, street lights that don’t function and which, in some cases, like in the vicinity of Southway Mall, Rossburgh , have not functioned since 2010.

A caring, liveable city does not have constant water supply ruptures. It does not tolerate 55% of its water supply being stolen or lost through old infrastructure.  It has a refuse  service that operates regularly instead of when it is not striking and when its poorly maintained vehicles can manage their routes. A caring, liveable city reads water and electricity meters regularly so its customers are properly billed instead of being subjected to estimated accounts.

It is laughable for the mayor to refer to a “just transition” in energy availability when eThekwini electricity breakdowns, which have nothing to do with load shedding, are a daily occurrence. How does he propose to transition to this “just” situation when there is such a dearth of technical skills, a situation the ANC has fostered through its racist policies?

If there is a monument to the decline of Durban under the ANC, it is the much- touted Moses Mabhida stadium. Not only has it become a white elephant at a cost to ratepayers in excess of R6 million a month, but the inability to fix the sky car, which has been out of commission for several years, is a fitting advertisement of ANC achievement.

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