Economic decentralisation has long been the trend as far as shops and shopping is concerned. Customers seek convenience and safety which crowded inner-city locations in Durban and Pietermaritzburg cannot provide. Excessive crime in those places is simply the tipping point in forcing businesses to pursue the relocation of the money trail to malls further afield which are much easier to secure against criminal elements than the busy inner-city matrix of streets and lanes.

Malls like Galleria, Arbor Crossing, Pavilion, Hillcrest, Gateway and Cornubia underline the reality to which economic power has decentralised and evolved. As such, those hubs constitute revenue bases that can incentivise a reversion to smaller municipalities.

Attempts to address the crime menace by deploying corporate security and private patrols in CBDs, whilst well-intentioned, are unlikely to succeed in persuading customers to return. Besides, the economic downside of  such measures would see costs passed onto customers.

The blunt reality is that eThekwini metro is failing in every respect. The fact that it cannot control crime in the CBD is no different from its inability to diminish the theft of water and electricity. The blunt reality is that the CBD is not an investment attraction because of crime and grime.

But areas such as Amanzimtoti, Hillcrest and Umhlanga which have established profitable shopping malls, have become investment destinations. If they were to revert to being independent municipalities as they were before eThekwini metro swallowed them up, they could offer competitive rates and services which would stimulate broad economic growth.

Across the country, bloated municipalities and metros are proving to be inefficient and dysfunctional. By reverting to smaller, sustainable municipalities as the Freedom Front Plus advocates, governance and service delivery would improve along with effective control of crime. Investors and businesses should see the scourge of crime as a catalyst to champion the re-establishment of smaller municipalities because in economic terms, less is more.

Sent into The Mercury and published, July 29, 2019.

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In 2000, when the unicity model was proposed, its motivation was premised on the claim that the consolidation of more than ten local municipalities into a single metropolitan administration would reduce the duplication of services and prove cost-effective.

The history of eThekwini budgets since 2003 proves otherwise. The metro staff complement grew from 16,000 to in excess of 24,000, proving Parkinson’s law, that bureaucracy begets bureaucracy, is thriving in eThekwini. In tandem with that bureaucratic bloat, the size of the budget has increased by nearly 500%. In 2003 it totalled R9,75 billion. By 2008 it had grown 240% to R23,4 billion. Now it stands at R50,6 billion.

Yet service delivery has neither improved nor matched the costs involved in providing it. Indeed, at best it ranges from patchy to poor. But the most critical aspect of the eroding state of the eThekwini metro is its rates base. It has never grown in proportion to the ever-increasing budgets thrust upon ratepayers, languishing at never more than a 1,5% growth rate.

Thus, a situation has arisen where 19% of eThekwini subsidises 81%. Yet in a cavalier fashion, the so-called mayor boasts of the extent to which free services are extended to non-payers.

Although there is no drought and the dam levels are satisfactory, water tariffs for those who actually pay, are to increase by 15%. What is not disclosed, it that 40% of water bought by eThekwini is either stolen or lost through leaks, a situation that has been ongoing since 2001.

Despite the critical condition of the economy (growing at a mere 0,9%) and the faltering state of local government, the so-called mayor calls for “action” in order to “broaden service delivery and attract investors.” It’s the same claptrap we have heard for nearly 20 years.

The only action that can salvage Durban from the tipping point is to disestablish the metro and, piecemeal, re-establish municipalities like Pinetown, Umhlanga and Amanzimtoti. The metro is no longer affordable or sustainable. From an economic point of view, less is more. Smaller municipalities competing for business and offering investors and residents competitive rates would stimulate economic growth in a way the unwieldy metro has shown it cannot deliver. The province needs to re-establish development service boards so as to take care of the vast rural area that constitutes 68% of eThekwini municipality.

Across the country, local government has become bloated and dysfunctional because it is seen as a convenient cash cow for the politically connected. As such, it has proved beneficial only to them and their comrades. By reverting to smaller, sustainable municipalities, as the Freedom Front Plus advocates, the concomitant of improved governance would be improved service delivery.

Sent into The Mercury and published, 9 June 2019.

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