5 damning reasons used to fire eThekwini Mayor Zandile Gumede

Published Aug 13, 2019

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Durban - The axe was set to fall on the entire executive of the eThekwini Municipality on Tuesday with speculation rife that embattled Mayor, Zandile Gumede, her deputy, Fawzi Peer, speaker William Mapena and chief whip Nelly Nyanisa all set to be relieved of their positions in the city.

Also in the cross-hairs of the provincial ANC were eThekwini executive committee , Zama Sokhabase, Sipho Kaunda, Mondli Mthembu and Barbara Fortein.

According to sources in the ANC, the provincial executive committee used a damning state of local government report compiled by KwaZulu-Natal’s Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) Department after a comprehensive assessment of all provincial municipalities as the basis to clear out the eThekwini executive.

The report which the Daily News has gleaned paints a grim picture of how the eThekwini Municipality has been mismanaged.

Here are five key findings of the report:

- Areas of sanitation in greater Durban (with 213 spillages a day) and housing (with a backlog of 385 000) were the most concerning.

- According to the report, business forums and political interference in administrative decisions negatively affected service delivery.

- Project implementation is compromised by delays in procurement processes, decision-making, poor project management and oversight.

- In opposition-led wards councillors are not fully engaged on projects and contractors report to proportional representation councillors. Allegations of fraud and corruption are evident.

- Debate and discussion in council is stifled and frustrates decision-making processes as well as compromising transparency, read the report.

Daily News

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