Opposition party the Democratic Alliance (DA) on Wednesday held a media briefing at its headquarters in Johannesburg, where it updated media on the progress at its various metros since the 2016 local government elections.

DA national spokesperson Solly Malatsi said South Africans had, in 2016, granted the DA a mandate to govern more than 30 municipalities in South Africa.

“Our metros do excellent work and more media coverage goes to that but there is also incredible work that goes unnoticed from the smaller metros because the focus isn’t on these municipalities. Our message is to showcase what the DA has done to turn around local municipalities across the country,” said Malatsi.

Where the DA governs, he said, residents have running water, more access to jobs and a better quality of life.

According to a recent Auditor-General report, 72% of municipalities with clean audits were DA-run. This includes 12 municipalities in the Western Cape and one in Gauteng.

The Quarterly Labour Force Survey report released last week, showed that the Western Cape obtained the lowest expanded unemployment rate in the country at 23.8% compared to a national rate of 38.5%.

KOUGA MUNICIPALITY

Kouga municipality Mayor Horatio Hendricks said his district in the Eastern Cape was now financially stronger compared with the previous administration.

The municipality’s collection rate increased from 72% in August 2016 to 94% in August 2019, while the municipality’s cash-on-hand increased from R70-million in June 2017 to R214-million in June 2019.

Hendricks revealed that the municipality had also invested millions to upgrade its water and wastewater treatment works.

In 2017 and 2018 the DA-led municipality distributed 1 827 title deeds.

“Under the previous ANC [African National Congress] regimes, the building of new government-subsidised housing came to a standstill. This changed under the leadership of the DA when in 2017 work started on the top structures of 391 houses at Kruisfontein. Another two housing projects are currently underway and another seven are in the advanced planning stage,” he highlighted.

Hendricks boasted that 7 785 potholes were repaired in the 2018/19 financial year and revealed that Kouga will be pioneering the first road in Africa made from plastic waste. He says this is a stronger and more durable alternative to asphalt mixes.

When the DA took over in 2016, Kouga had almost 4 000 household which still relied on a bucket toilet system.

Hendricks vowed to get rid of more than 2 000 bucket toilets through current housing projects, and also launched a multi-year programme in the 2018/19 financial year to eliminate the use of buckets in Kouga entirely.

He added that if this was not achieved he would have failed in carrying out his duties.

MIDVAAL MUNICIPALITY

Midvaal Mayor Bongani Baloyi said his municipality in Gauteng consistently rates as one of the best run municipalities nationwide.

Midvaal was one of only 18 municipalities in the country, and the only one in Gauteng, to receive a clean audit for the 2017/18 financial year, its fifth consecutive one.

He said his municipality was open for business and added that their secret was simple, which was to do their job for the communities they serve.

“…the 2017/18 findings of the Gauteng City Region Observatory’s Quality of Life Survey found that while overall satisfaction with service delivery in Gauteng is decreasing, the overall approval of the quality of services provided by Midvaal is steadily increasing,” said a proud Baloyi.

The municipality will spend more than R95-million to improve water supply, as well as more than R40-million on electrifying areas.

R43-million will go towards tarring 23 km of roads and R42-million will be spent to maintain the existing road network.

On dealing with corruption, following reports of Midvaal municipality’s deputy municipal manager being implicated in a jobs-for-cash scandal, Baloyi said they have dealt with the matter and they have acted decisively without fear or favour.

The deputy manager was placed on special leave after a whistleblower reported him for irregular appointments in the municipality.

In this past financial year, the municipality appointed six youth-owned cooperatives under the primary contractor from the Kgatelopele companies.

“In the coming weeks the DA-led Midvaal municipality will also be launching the ‘Midvaal’s Sebenza Imbokodo Fund’, which will provide start-up capital for female-owned small-scale businesses in the informal sector and assist them to take their business to the next level,” added Baloyi.

Meanwhile, the DA said that change was tangible in South Africa under their leadership and added that the party would take the message of service delivery and jobs to the country in 2021.