Party squabbles and councillors walking out mar eThekwini state of the city address

eThekwini's state of the city debate was overshadowed by DA and ANC squabbles, resulting in the opposition party walking out prior to the mayor’s address.

The ANC took offence to remarks made by the DA’s Andre Beegte, who said the ruling party had found a functional municipality and ran it into the crisis in which it finds itself.

“I want to tell the tale of two cities. The one the mayor boasts about and the other created in 1960, 63 years ago,” he said.

The ANC’s Ntombifuthi Sisoka responded, saying the city in the 1960s was under the apartheid regime and providing services to fewer people.

“His selective approach when he articulates is very biased. He’s taking us back to 1960 during the apartheid era when only a few were catered for,” she said.

That started a war of words between the two parties, with ANC members calling the DA racists, “apartheid beneficiaries” and apologists of the July 2021 Phoenix massacre.

Nkosenhle Madlala said DA members who are in eThekwini council but constantly comparing the city unfavourably to Cape Town were commuting acst of “promiscuity.”

After howling and point-of-orders, the DA decided to walk out of the meeting as mayor Mxolisi Kaunda was about to respond to the submissions by the parties and make his closing remarks.

“I’m not surprised as mayor that we still have beneficiaries of apartheid seated in this council. The beneficiaries of apartheid like councillor Beegte come here and praise apartheid and think we forget what they did to us. We only forgave them but don’t remind us,” said Kaunda.

Explaining the party’s decision to walk out of council, the DA’s Mzamo Billy said: “The DA took the difficult decision to walk out after enduring severe insults from mayor Kaunda, who referred to DA councillors as racists and murderers.”

Billy also shared grievances against speaker Thabani Nyawose for “once again displaying bias in favour of the ANC and refusing to address the issue”.

The parties had had a robust debate prior to the drama.

The DA’s said by-election victory in Chatsworth’s ward 77 showed the people of eThekwini wanted change.

Billy said the mayor’s state of the city address was an “imaginary fantasy” that has been proved by the events that have taken place afterwards.

“The mayor said he was proud of stability and the unity purpose in the city yet his own party, the ANC, disagrees with that by intervening through the implementation of section 154.”

He said the city was collapsing under Kaunda’s watch, referring to the reported failure to use grants that resulted in national treasury taking them back and “failures of SCM processes.”

Welekazi Ndiweni, also from the DA, compared Kaunda’s state of the city address to “pulling the wool over the eyes of investor and citizens”.

“Recently Heineken disinvested R7bn, LG Electronics disinvested R1.2bn, Samsung Electronics disinvested R2.5bn and Toyota has scaled down production and operations to the tune of R15bn. These are just a few disinvestments in our city,” she said.

She said businesses were struggling to return to pre-Covid numbers in the city because of infrastructure decay and tourists choosing Cape Town over Durban.

The IFP’s Jonathan Annippen highlighted the increase in informal settlements and slow pace of removing people from transit camps.

“Informal settlements have been on a  steady increase for years but instead of providing decent living arrangements and proper housing for people our response has been transit camps which were supposed to be temporary measures but became decades long foundation,” he said.

ActionSA’s Zwakele Mncwango complained about  tariff increases that were above inflation, the failure to provide a back up plan for massive water losses, failure to spend budget while economic zones are closing down and failure of the Moses Mabhida Stadium to sustain itself.

Opposition councillors said these were some of the reasons they thought Kaunda’s speech did not represent the true state of the city.

ANC members defended the mayor, saying the parties were deliberately ignoring the impact of the April floods.

They also re-emphasised the projects Kaunda had listed as among efforts to improve the city’s infrastructure and living conditions, including the plan to eliminate transit camps by 2025.

Zama Sokhabase said seven beaches in the city had blue flag status prior to the floods and highlighted the Moses Mabhida Stadium was the only one in the country open seven days a week and provides work opportunities to more than 1,000 people when there are events.

Kaunda maintained the city was stable, both financially and in terms of the running of council, especially compared to other metros.

“This city is stable, no doubt about that. In other metros people are throwing chairs in council chambers. Have you seen chaos in this city where people wake up in the morning not knowing who is the mayor?

“Another area  people do not talk about is that we are one of the cities that does not owe Eskom anything. We don’t owe Umgeni water anything for services and that speaks about our financial stability,” he said.

Kaunda said Heineken had concluded a deal in the city which will amount to R140bn.

He said there were elements of deliberate sabotage in infrastructure damage in the city and they were waiting for a report from the State Security Agency in that regard.

He conceded the city has to admit responsibility around decay to infrastructure but insisted the impact of the floods could not be ignored.

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