Call for eThekwini councillors to meet urgently to address challenges faced by flood-hit communities

DURBAN - DA Councillor Nicole Graham has called on the leaders of the eThekwini Municipality to convene an Exco meeting by Friday following concerns that the exco has not sat for more than two weeks.

The Mercury reported yesterday Graham and other opposition party councillors were concerned that despite the city trying to recover from its worst natural disaster in decades, the city leadership and its Executive Committee councillors had not convened since April 26.

eThekwini and the rest of KwaZulu-Natal are recovering from devastating floods that left hundreds of people dead and thousands of homes destroyed.

Graham wrote a letter to all councillors that sit in the Executive committee meeting to convene a meeting by tomorrow.

“I write to you collectively and individually in your capacity as members of the eThekwini Executive Committee,” she said in the letter.

“Over the past few weeks, our city has been thrust into the grips of an unimaginable crisis. Across every community in eThekwini, people are suffering, frustrated and incredibly angry with the government.

“The floods have left us proverbially naked and with every weakness in our system completely exposed.”

She said large areas had unstable water or electricity supply, the sewerage networks were destroyed, thousands of people were living in community halls or were otherwise displaced, people were still missing, and services across the board were at an all-time low.

“As eThekwini’s EXCO, we are the leaders of this city. This is our legal and political function. As of today, the last time we met was on the 26th of April - 16 days ago.

“The reality is that the city is operating on auto-pilot, and it is not working out for anyone. We do not meet for the sake of it - we meet to make decisions, to enforce accountability, to oversee implementation of solutions, and to make sure this city is taking care of its lawful obligations,” she said.

She said there are a number of important issues that the city needs to tackle.

“I thus write to each of you to ask that you support a proposal to urgently convene EXCO at 9am tomorrow morning, Friday, 13 May 2022,” she said.

Mayoral spokesperson Mluleki Mntungwa had previously said the city was responding to the crises of the public, and Exco would be meeting on Tuesday next week.