The Executive Committee (EXCO) has expressed concern about the recent spate of unrelated killings that have been experienced around the City over the past few weeks. The murders include the gunning down of four people in KwaMashu Hostel at the weekend, the death of the KwaNdengezi protest leader and the two students who died in separate incidents.
Mayor James Nxumalo gave a detailed report about some of the killings during an EXCO meeting at City Hall on Tuesday, 11 November 2014.
KwaNdengezi
“In KwaNdengezi we experienced protests over the past weeks and the Municipal property was damaged in the process. I went to address the community and we were planning to have a public meeting under the banner of the Masakhane public participation programme on Sunday with the Heads of different Units within the Municipality. Unfortunately one of the protesters was shot dead by unknown people and we had to call off the meeting. The situation in the area is very much of concern to us,” said Nxumalo.
KwaMashu Hostel intervention
EXCO mandated City Manager, Sibusiso Sithole to investigate the possibility of fencing the KwaMashu Hostel to complement the security measures already implemented to improve safety in the area. This follows the fatal shooting of four people by unknown gunmen on Friday evening. The Municipality has already installed CCTV cameras and high mast lights as part of earlier interventions aimed at curbing the high crime rate at the hostel.
Mayor Nxumalo told EXCO that on Saturday he accompanied MEC for Community Safety and Liaison Willis Mchunu, MEC for Health Dr Sibongiseni Dlomo and local councillors to visit KwaMashu hostel after the shooting.
He said residents at the hostel wanted the Municipality to implement similar measures that were used to bring stability at Glebelands Community Residential Unit.
“In our meeting with the community they requested that we should demolish the shacks that are unoccupied because they are contributing to the congestion. We will also be cutting trees and alien plants that are making the work of the police difficult because they make it easy for criminals to hide.”
“One of the biggest challenges at the KwaMashu hostel is over population. There are about 23 000 people who are registered and known to live in the area legally but currently there is a population of over 100 000 people. That is a big challenge especially because of the informal settlement,” he said.
“We have a duty to save the lives of innocent people who are getting killed at the hostel for no reason. Once we have demolished the unoccupied shacks we need to mark and number all the other shacks that exist in the area,” he said.
Mayor Nxumalo added that MEC Mchunu is liaising with the National Police Minister to deploy police officers from other provinces in order to bring stability. A similar strategy was employed to bring peace at Glebelands.
Report on exco retreat
Mayor Nxumalo explained the rationale for last week’s strategic planning workshop with Chairpersons of Portfolio Committees and Senior Management at the Drakensberg last week. Opposition parties who are members of EXCO complained that they were left behind and not invited to the three day meeting.
“We want to correct the misconceptions that have been created about our trip to Drakensberg. The workshop was an operational matter as we are now beginning the planning process for the 2015/16 financial year. This lekgotla has helped us to understand all the bottlenecks and challenges that we may experience in the implementation of our programmes,” he said. “We are still going to call another workshop with all EXCO members. At least by then we will all be better prepared and ready to take our programmes forward,” said Mayor Nxumalo.
City Manager Sibusisio Sithole said the workshop was important in charting the way forward for the Municipality. “The decisions taken at the lekgotla will filter into the programmes of different committees and clusters,” he said.
Community based planning process
EXCO approved the implementation of the Community Based Planning process (CBP) that encourages communities to develop plans based on the needs of their Wards. This process will feed into the City’s Integrated Development Plan (IDP) and budgeting processes.
The CBP process is designed to help municipal wards develop ward plans to stimulate active citizenship and allows communities to assist municipalities develop credible IDPs which are based on the views of the people
The CBP programme will be implemented in all 103 wards of eThekwini Municipality in phases. The development of a ward plan is a five day process, where participatory tools are used to understand the differences within the community, to identify and prioritise outcomes and key risks and then to plan how to address these. The planning process will be facilitated by trained municipal and other facilitators. A total of 100 facilitators have been trained and they will be split into 20 teams comprising of five people to be able to cover one region at a given time (each region comprising of 17-18 wards).
The first CBP will take place during the week of 21 November – 01 December in the South Central Region. The process will run until March 2015 and will be followed by feedback sessions in all affected regions.
A budget of R6.895 million has been set aside for the exercise, with R3.134 m already identified in the budget and R3.76m shortfall to be funded from savings within the Community Participation and Action Support Unit.
