Durban — EThekwini Municipality Mayor Cyril Xaba said in the City's plan to eradicate corruption and malpractices emanating from service providers, it has blacklisted a total of 32 service providers.

Xaba was explaining what the municipality has achieved under his leadership since he took office 100 days ago. Xaba said those blacklisted companies were now disqualified from participating in the procurement system of the municipality. Giving reasons for the decision, Xaba said the reasons range from fraud and corruption, poor performance and conflict of interest where some companies were found to have directors employed by the state.

Xaba said the municipal finances were in good shape. He said eThekwini was one of the few municipalities that did not owe Eskom any money. Xaba also boasted about meeting monthly obligations for bulk water purchases from uMgeni-uThukela Water.

Xaba said the fact that the City was continuing to obtain unqualified audit opinions from the Auditor-General (AG) was a further demonstration that shows it was financially well managed. However, Xaba said he remains committed to address the matters the AG has raised with the municipality. To address the AG’s concerns, Xaba said the City was implementing consequence management to deal with employees involved in maladministration as demonstrated by the reduction of disciplinary cases backlog from 334 to four.

“It is important to mention that our efforts to stabilise the city, accelerate service delivery and fight fraud and corruption are beginning to show positive results. We are encouraged by the recently released Business Confidence Index report which indicates that business confidence in the city has increased for the second consecutive quarter. We believe our interventions are finding resonance with our social partners as they create a positive investor climate,” said Xaba.

He said the City remained a destination of choice by tourists, adding that in the last three months eThekwini has successfully hosted a number of international events at the iconic Inkosi Albert Luthuli Convention Centre and the Moses Mabhida Stadium. These include the Resurgence Conference which was attended by more than 8000 delegates, the MTN 8 Cup Final and several music concerts. The Hollywoodbets Kings Park Rugby Stadium and Kingsmead continued to play host to world-class matches which attract both local and international visitors.

About the city’s water challenges, Xaba said there was an improvement in water supply in the northern areas such as uMhlanga, Durban North and Phoenix after replacing all water valves in the northern aqueduct pipeline.

“We are also making progress in improving water supply in the southern areas following the appointment of a contractor to commence with repairs and upgrades of the southern aqueduct.

“We are happy to report that water supply in Umlazi, Chatsworth and surrounding areas is improving after repairing faulty valves on the existing pipeline. The laying of the new pipeline is well on track for this two-year project with a value of R1.2 billion,” said Xaba.

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