Durban — Political and public policy expert Professor Siphamandla Zondi has cited the collapse of the performance management system as a reason for the poor governance in eThekwini.
Zondi, who is the head of Politics and International Relations at the University of Johannesburg, was a guest speaker at the Municipal Strategy conference in Durban on Thursday.
Speaking to the Daily News on the sidelines, the KwaZulu-Natal-born expert said it was concerning to hear that a city such as eThekwini was failing to do basic things such as paying service providers on time to a point that it would be reminded by the courts.
He called on the City’s leadership to revive the performance management system, which would force managers to pay from their pockets if they caused the City to incur unnecessary interest.
“There is no ethical leadership, so there must be serious consequences for managers who are failing to do their job, thereby causing the City to pay R6 million in interest,” said Zondi.
The City is embroiled in a legal tussle with a service provider who is demanding R62m in interest for the management’s failure to settle his close to half-a-billion debt of four years. The interest was for the half-a-billion tender the City had ”awarded” to a security company.
The new demand came just days after the municipality was forced to pay R6.6m in interest accrued because of the City’s failure to pay a service provider who had supplied electricity smart meters. The City has suspended the deputy city manager, Sibusiso Makhanya, whom it blamed for the delay in paying for the service.
Makhanya has taken the matter to the South African Bargaining Council, challenging the suspension.
In the half-a-billion-rand matter, a security company that did work for the City has threatened to go to court if the City does not immediately pay the money owed to the company.
On September 8, Solbeth Protection and Risk Management wrote to the City’s executive committee demanding the immediate payment of R413161463, which includes R62.8m interest, which the company said was ignored by Exco.
Solbeth’s chief executive, advocate Siyabonga Xulu, told the Daily News that the debt started accumulating in 2019 after his company was appointed by then-city manager Sipho Nzuza, who asked for his services after discovering that his life was in danger. However, his attempts to get his payment had not been successful.
Nzuza said he would not want to get entangled in the internal affairs of the City since he was no longer part of the management, and advised Xulu to take the matter to court.
The City said the executive committee was dealing with the matter together with its legal advisers.
Zondi's presentation focused on the role of international relations in municipalities. He said he was happy that municipalities in South Africa had developed their own relations with their counterparts in the developed economic exchange programmes.
Zondi said he had discovered that in 2008, many municipalities were found to have visited Chinese cities on what the municipalities called study tours in the foreign cities. He said these exchanges were beneficial to the municipalities in developing their economic strategies so that they don't rely on the government's grants.
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