Durban — eThekwini ward councillors have been rapped over the knuckles for not holding public meetings in their wards.
Since the Local Government Elections in November 2021, some councillors have been struggling to find themselves offices, while budget constraints have prevented others from holding meetings.
eThekwini Municipality speaker Thabani Nyawose said 27 councillors were without offices. Ten had identified office space in privately owned premises where the building was not compliant with eThekwini Supply Chain Management (SCM) requirements to enable these contracts to be finalised.
Nyawose said business support was, however, assisting them to address outstanding complaints or compliance matters. Of the remaining 17 councillors, five leases were being negotiated by the city’s real estate department. Some councillors were still conducting inspections in council-owned buildings. Four councillors still had to identify offices in their preferred areas.
Nyawose said of the 111 Proportional Representation Councillors, 35 had been provided with offices, and 48 had not asked for office space.
“It is disappointing that some councillors have not yet submitted their request for office space. We have submissions by councillors and we are attending to them,” he said.
Nyawose was concerned about the number of public meetings held and warned councillors that they were not complying with the code of conduct in this regard. Nyawose said that in the financial year 2021/2022, only 79 community engagements were reported to his office. Between July 2021 and September 2021, 32 meetings were recorded. Between October and December 2021, no meetings were convened.
Between January and March 2022, 27 meetings and between April and June 2022, only 11 meetings were held.
Nyawose reminded councillors to submit meeting dates to his office timeously so that procurement could be done through the SCM.
“There are councillors who submitted requests and they were told there were no funds available.
“My office is working with the finance and supply chain on those issues,” Nyawose said.
Daily News