Councillors’ cruise cancelled

The eThekwini Municipality was set to splurge about R160 000 sending a large delegation on a three-day cruise on the MSC Sinfonia.

The eThekwini Municipality was set to splurge about R160 000 sending a large delegation on a three-day cruise on the MSC Sinfonia.

Published Mar 3, 2016

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Durban - EThekwini councillors who might have been getting ready to travel in luxury on a cruise to the Portuguese Islands, have been ordered by the ANC in KwaZulu-Natal to instead focus their energies on mobilising people to register to vote.

The municipality had planned to take the councillors on an ocean tourism “conference cruise” to Mozambique’s Portuguese Island.

Read: eThekwini sending 40 councillors on cruise

News of the trip sparked a public outcry and was seen as being contrary to recent austerity measures.

Deputy mayor Nomvuzo Shabalala was going to lead a delegation from the city’s economic development and planning committee.

In a press briefing on Wednesday, the ANC’s provincial secretary Super Zuma said councillors would be spending the weekend mobilising potential voters to register with the Independent Electoral Commission for the local government elections.

Zuma said he would not comment on the cruise but was adamant that ANC councillors would not be on it.

“Not a single leader, not a single councillor, not a single MP will be out of the province. We will all be mobilising voters to go and vote,” he said, addressing journalists on Wednesday.

Zuma said stopping councillors taking the trip should not be interpreted as compromising municipal functioning for the ANC’s benefit.

“These are deployed cadres to the municipality, but we are saying this coming weekend they would be redeployed to do work for the organisation.”

Municipal speaker Logie Naidoo, who said he had been unaware of the cruise until The Mercury’s story, said on Wednesday that he had ruled that no councillor would attend the conference as it clashed with the voter registration weekend.

Read: Outrage at councillors’ boat cruise

The municipality had sent four different statements in response to The Mercury’s queries regarding the cruise and who would be footing the bill.

On Sunday, city spokeswoman Tozi Mthethwa had said Naidoo’s office still needed to finalise the number of councillors who would be attending the cruise conference, and a cost comparison had been done and it was similar to sending a councillor to Johannesburg for a day.

But on Tuesday, she said the municipality would not be funding any sea cruise and councillors would have to “register to participate”.

On Wednesday, mayor James Nxumalo said in a “public letter” to Durban residents that the cruise was “privately funded”.

He said a report was tabled before the economic development and planning committee on December 3 “seeking support for the city to host the maritime summit which was held on February 24-26, 2016”. This was approved, he said.

“This matter was recommended by the economic development and planning committee for inclusion in the executive committee agenda for approval,” he wrote.

“There are no contradictions for the city doing cost-comparing for councillors to attend the conference as paying delegates.”

He said the suggestion that the municipality was funding the cruise was “a clear smear campaign and cheap tactics to garner votes ahead of the local government elections”.

He said it was crucial for councillors, as public representatives responsible for policymaking, to “interact with relevant industry players and obtain best practice to make informed decisions”.

Pressed for clarity about why cost comparisons were done if the cruise was to be privately funded, city spokeswoman Tozi Mthethwa said on Wednesday: “Due consideration of the cost and cost comparison are done on all activities prior to the necessary authority being sought. Such a report would further request the Speaker’s office to nominate participating councillors based on the nature of the programme,” she said.

She also said the report from the economic and development planning cluster on the cruise, had not been tabled at the executive committee, and therefore the matter was a “non-issue”.

DA councillor Nicole Graham described the mayor’s open letter as “spectacular back-pedalling by the city”.

“We were told (at a economic development committee meeting) that the budget was allocated from the economic development unit, and that all councillors’ costs would be covered. It’s no smear campaign, it’s the city changing its tune.”

IFP national chairman Blessed Gwala described the cruise as a “jamboree”.

“Whatever information that would be imparted on the cruise can be made available to the councillors and officials at any of the many municipal halls.”

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The Mercury

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