Durban – ETHEKWINI Municipality will spend R3 million on the Durban Cultural and Heritage Day Programme, the executive committee agreed on Tuesday.
Even though he supported the agenda item, which seeks to pay R1 million in artists’ fees, R500 000 each for technical engineer/s (for sound, stage and lighting), infrastructure, logistics and hospitality and live streaming and media, mayor Mxolisi Kaunda warned against spending money on programmes that did not address service delivery issues.
“Awareness programmes should not cost us this much. The concept is good, but we should be looking at how we spend money.
“Service delivery is our primary focus, and we can’t be a metro of events while we have overgrown grass and lack of other services,” Kaunda told his councillors.
The Community Services Committee resolved to recommend that authority be granted to the head: parks, recreation and culture to co-ordinate and implement the approved programmes for the Durban Heritage and Cultural Month and Social Cohesion Indaba with funding expected from the special events projects unit.
The IFP’s Mdu Nkosi said hosting events was not the municipality’s core function. He said service delivery should be taking centre stage during the day-to-day running of the city.
“Our burial sites and parks are neglected. It is the duty of the tourism unit to market and sell the city so organising gigs is not part of the City’s responsibility,” Nkosi said.
The DA’s Nicole Graham said: “We were confused about this spending on this event because the majority of it is going to be online. We found that a lot of the events have been big-budget events that don’t necessarily fall in line with the idea (of the event).”
Daily News