NYANDENI Local Municipality Mayor, Councillor Mesuli Ngqondwana, has tabled the municipal council’s five-year term performance report, since the council took office after the 2016 local government elections.
The report was tabled during an open council meeting held at Dan’s Country Lodge outside Mthatha on September 30 where, contrary to the norm, members of the public were allowed to make remarks and give inputs on the report tabled by Ngqondwana.
In his report, Ngqondwana cited improved financial management, curbing fruitless and wasteful expenditure, dealing decisively with corruption within the municipality, and creating a conducive environment for investment as some of the notable achievements of the council in the five-year period.
“It is only on rare circumstances that we have licensed the use of facilities outside our own for municipal programmes.
“Thus, you will be glad to learn that gratuitous use of financial resources has been nipped in the bud.
“This has often earned the municipality back-to-back unqualified audit opinions with the Auditor General mortified by the diligence with which we use municipal resources,” Ngqondwana said.
He further said building social infrastructure had been one of the key issues that the council made sure had become a key lever to economic growth within the municipality.
“Some of this social infrastructure can be as minute as building an early childhood development centre to the building of roads for heavy transport. We have been able to prioritise transport intended at unlocking ocean’s economy.
“However, we have not neglected the social infrastructure that includes taxi ranks for purposes of facilitating faster public transport,” Ngqondwana added.
He said over the five-year period of the outgoing council, 761km of access roads had been constructed, Ngqeleni municipal offices construction was completed to bring municipal services closer to the people, and shopping malls for both Ngqeleni and Libode were constructed, which led to creation of employment for locals.
Ngqondwana said the fight against gender-based violence and death of initiates in illegal initiation schools were some of the challenges that the new council that would come in after the November 1 local government elections would be seized with.
