Cacadu mayor crowned Eastern Cape mayor of the year.

01 Feb 2016 | Admin Author

The executive mayor of the Cacadu District Municipality, Eunice Kekana, has been crowned Mayor of the Year in the Eastern Cape.

She received the accolade at the Vuna Awards, held in East London.

The District Municipality also received an award for maintaining an unqualified audit for 6 consecutive years.

Eastern Cape Local Government MEC, Mlibo Qoboshiyane, was full of praise for the Cacadu District Municipality.

"That municipality is not a big one but their focus, attention and paying detail on issues is quite impressive and I think if we can encourage such kind of municipalities this province can go ahead"

Meanwhile, the Local Government MEC was not so complimentary about the province's biggest metropolitan municipality, the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality.

Divisions in the ruling party in the metro have stymied the administration and led to the inability of Council to take key decisions, like the appointment of a permanent municipal manager.

The post has been vacant for several years.

Qoboshiyane had this to say about Nelson Mandela Bay and other municipalities that he said were regressing.

"Surely I must also send a strong signal to municipalities that are regressing, remember Nelson Mandela Metro has always held the mantle of being one of the best metro's when it comes to audit outcomes. In the recent past we are seeing regression and we know in detail the reasons, and I think we cannot say anything good about it"

Meanwhile

Maletswai local municipality in Aliwal North won the R45 000 first prize for its overall performance.

Others including Koukamma, Intsika Yethu, Ndlambe and Kouga were each awarded R35 000 prizes for "making significant performances" in each of the five KPAs. Overall, seven municipalities, Amathole, Ingquza Hill, Umzimvubu, Tsolwana, Blue Crane, Mnquma and Elundini, were given awards for achieving the "most improved audit outcome".

The three MIG expenditure winners were Chris Hani district municipality and Camdeboo and Senqu local councils which received R80 000, R60 000 and R50 000 respectively.

Following the Vuna Awards ceremony held in East London last night, the secretary for the ANC in the Eastern Cape, Lubabalo Mabuyane released a statement congratulating te winners...

We want to congratulate all the municipalities that have received Awards for performance excellence.

All these municipalities continue to exhibit the meaning of effective service delivery and we are excited that under the ANC leadership, more municipalities continue to improve the lives of the people.

Municipalities that didn't win a single award, must not be dejected but must work harder to improve the lives of our people.

While we regard the awards as a good measure of performance on delivery, we appeal to municipalities not to focus their attention on receiving awards but on serving the people. It is when they serve the people properly and effectively that they will be awarded.

The ANC expects all its municipalities to implement our manifesto, we expect the Councillors we sent to all our 44 municipalities to ensure that Municipalities improve their audit outcomes, improve infrastructure expenditure so that delivery can be concretised.

As we observe good performance in various municipalities, we would like to congratulate Cacadu District Municipality Mayor Cde Khunjuzwa Kekana as an ANC Deployee for the award of being the best Mayor, this is a reflection that ANC has outstanding leaders in our communities. Cde Kekana was not just appointed and deployed by the Provincial leadership, but was also identified by ANC branches as having capacity to lead in the municipality. We encourage all ANC branches not only in that region to continue identifying such leaders to serve the people.