Durban - The IFP in eThekwini believes the consecutive cancellation of executive committee (exco) meetings of the eThekwini Municipality is undermining the committee and the important role it plays in ensuring service delivery.
A meeting of the committee scheduled this week was cancelled three times in two days for a variety of reasons.
The full-time committee is central to recommending decisions to be approved by full council and implemented by City officials.
The first meeting was scheduled for Tuesday morning but was postponed for 5pm that same day.
At 5pm, with some of the City officials already logged on to the virtual meeting, it was cancelled and rescheduled for yesterday at 4pm.
This was again cancelled and rescheduled yesterday for Monday morning.
IFP councillor Mdu Nkosi said the cancellations undermined the work of the executive committee.
But DA councillor Thabani Mthethwa said the reasons for the cancellation were beyond anyone’s control.
The meeting on Tuesday morning was cancelled because the Minister of Human Settlements, Mmamoloko Kubayi and Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Thembi Nkadimeng visited the city to commiserate with the victims of the fire at the Dakota informal settlement.
The fire earlier this week gutted the settlement in Isipingo and left hundreds of people destitute.
It is understood that for yesterday’s meeting, DA exco members had other commitments and therefore could not attend.
The notice of the cancellation yesterday said “please note that some of the executive committee members are not available for (Wednesday) meeting. Therefore his worship (mayor Mxolisi Kaunda) requested that the meeting be moved to Monday. It should be noted the meeting would be held physically at a venue to be confirmed.”
Nkosi said the fact that the DA members could not attend was not reason enough to cancel the meeting, saying the other exco members would have still formed a quorum.
“With regard to the cancellation on Tuesday, did the City officials not know that the officials from the national government would be visiting the city?” questioned Nkosi.
“I miss the days when the executive committee would meet and discuss substantive issues and make decisions that the officials can go and implement. That is not the case any more. Even the agenda we were set to discuss in this cancelled meeting, there are no items, the bulk of the agenda is minutes from the previous meeting,” he said.
Mthethwa said they understood the difficulty leading to the two meetings being unable to sit.
“On Tuesday we had understood that there will be an oversight visit by exco members and at 11 there will be an exco meeting. We later learnt that there will be a delegation from the national government coming to assess the disaster at the Dakota informal settlement.
“About yesterday’s meeting, I called to say that the three councillors from the DA would not be attending because we had another engagement,” he said.