PORT ELIZABETH, June 9 (ANA) – Nelson Mandela Bay executive mayor Danny Jordaan unveiled an ambitious plan at his maiden state of the metro address on Thursday, which he has dubbed the next “five golden years” for the city.
Jordaan, who was jovial in spirit, outlined the city’s achievements under the new administration in the past year.
He acknowledged that the new leadership had inherited an “incapacitated administration, slow and reluctant to respond, causing under performance in service delivery and with various forensic audits pointing to a series of inadequacies within the metro”.
He said that labour relations was previously at a low ebb, strikes were prevalent in the city and tendering procedures moved at a glacial pace, causing crucial programmes like pothole repairs to grind to a halt.
“We are not here to make promises, but to report on the milestones achieved during our one-year tenure in government. Our 12 gamechangers in 12 months include improved finance, we have cash holdings of R2 billion in the bank, improved credit rating by Moody’s – you can’t argue with Moody’s – and we now have a functional metro police, you can’t argue against progress and success,” he said.
Jordaan added that the metro had attracted investment of R20 billion. Key investors include Beijing Automobile International Corporation, which would to build a R11 billion vehicle manufacturing plant and was set to create 2,500 direct jobs.
Jordaan said that under the new leadership, a corruption hotline had been established and the metro had, to date, gotten rid of 29 people as a result of ongoing investigations.
Turning towards housing, Jordaan said that they hoped to deliver 7,000 housing opportunities in the current financial year, with the metro having so far repaired 4,175 units.
“Nine parcels of land have been made available for social housing…we set ourselves the target of delivering 7,000 housing opportunities, this number consists of over 4,000 low cost houses with the balance going towards informal settlements,” said Jordaan.
“As a result, R713 million will be spent in this regard. This also includes paying attention to the so called ‘Toilet City’ in Khayamnandi where 823 units will be built. We want a metro that (Nelson) Mandela can be proud of…by the end of June every house must have a toilet that flushes.”
Some light was shed on the heavily criticised Integrated Public Transport System (IPTS) and Jordaan said the buses would be up and running by July.
He said he hoped that Nelson Mandela Bay would be transformed into South Africa’s cultural capital with the creation of cultural hubs similar to that of Soweto’s Vilakazi Street.
Sporting bodies, including Eastern Province Football, EP Cricket and EP Rugby were said to be getting R6 million each to up their game.
The metro would also invest in the gang-plagued Northern Areas and the Helenvale Crime Prevention would receive R15 million. Jordaan said over R200 million was expected to be spent in the Northern Areas.
“We have to develop the Nelson Mandela Bay brand with consistent brand values to provide services and information that is integrated and that communicates plans shared by people with a common vision and goal…The five golden years requires that communities become active participants and beneficiaries in the programmes of our beloved metro”.
“We can’t have a rich minority and an overwhelming poor majority, it’s unsustainable. Look what we have done in one year, imagine what we can do in the next five years,” said Jordaan.
Meanwhile, while the mayor delivered his address inside the Feather Market Hall, South African Municipal Workers Union members picketed outside. Members chanted “down with Mayor Jordaan,” and called for safety and security boss, Linda Mti’s head.
“We have 36 members from safety and security that have been dismissed without disciplinary procedures being followed. As SAMWU we are not happy, we have written to the municipality but we got no response. We are not happy about Linda Mti’s appointment, he must be vetted to see that does he have criminal records that are still pending against him? But the municipality went ahead and employed him and as SAMWU we are reiterating that they should have not employed him up until he was vetted like all of us,” said SAMWU deputy secretary, Melekhaya Kortjan.
Democratic Alliance caucus leader, Retief Odendaal slated Jordaan’s address as “corruption, gangsterism, job losses and IPTS” – elements of which according to him, were “swept under the carpet”.
“The aborted and embarrassing IPTS which has to date cost the Metro approximately R2,5 billion was pointedly side-stepped. With an unfeasible version due to launch on July 1, it is now clear that this is an election ploy and will be as much of failure as the Metro Police Farce. In a document seen by the DA, the same glaring faults that prevented the IPTS from launching in the first place still exist and will once again prevent the buses from hitting the road in July, wasting even more money on this monument to ANC corruption,” Odendaal said.
“Mayor Jordaan cannot claim to be taking crime seriously. This is undoubtedly why he failed to even mention the war on gangsterism that our residents face on a daily basis. Two days ago a 12-year-old girl was brutally executed in the Northern Areas, with not a single Metro Police officer in sight,” said Odendaal.
– African News Agency (ANA)
