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Kouga Municipality leads the way in Eastern Cape

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The Democratic Alliance (DA) in the Eastern Cape is incredibly proud of the progress being made in the DA-led Kouga Municipality

Dear MyPE

Today, 6 March 2020, Kouga Mayor, Horatio Hendricks, delivered his State of the Municipality (SOMA) address in Jeffreys Bay and highligted the success story this municipality has become under a DA government.

Since the DA took over government in 2016 Kouga has become financially stable. At the end of the first semester of the current financial year the municipality had an operating surplus of R49,2 million and the cost coverage ratio stood at 1.81 months. The municipality also received its best ever audit opinion from the Office of the Auditor-General for the 2018/2019 financial year.

Over the past six months Kouga opened two state-of-the-art waste water treatment in Humansdorp and St Francis.

Built at a cost of R85,6 million, the Kruisfontein Waste Water Treatment Works incorporated 34 000 hours of local labour and the R31 million upgrade to the Sea Vista Waste Water Treatment Works at St Francis Bay was completed – with local labour working 44 639 hours on this project.

In December 2019 Kouga officially opened Africa’s first eco-friendly road, incorporating waste plastic, in Jeffreys Bay. A 300m strip of Woltemade Street was retarred using a plastic-infused asphalt mix.

A total of 10 801 potholes were fixed over the last six months of 2019 – that’s more than 1 800 per month.

Kouga is drought stricken and has been successful in its efforts to avoid Day Zero. The municipality has been developing new boreholes at Jeffreys Bay, Humansdorp, Patensie and Hankey. The Jeffreys Bay Water Treatment Works and Kruisfontein Water Treatment Works are also being upgraded.

The electrification of the Kruisfontein 391 housing project was completed last year and power is set to be installed to a further 200 plots at Donkerhoek and Arcadia in Humansdorp.

Another 61 houses at the Pellsrus 220 project in Jeffreys Bay were completed, with the remaining houses nearing completion. The installation of services to 1 300 sites of the Ocean View 1 500 project has also been completed.

The municipality is keeping Kouga clean and a total of 10 000 wheelie bins have been distributed at Hankey, Patensie, Loerie, Thornhill and Humansdorp.

Kouga’s Link service delivery app, supported by the call centre, is successful and more than 23 000 incidents were resolved from July to December 2019 alone.

In 2016 only 4% of Kouga’s fleet was in good working order. Three and a half years later at least 90% of the municipality’s vehicles are on the road every day.

The DA has brought change to the Kouga Municipality and will shortly bring this same change to Nelson Mandela Bay.

Where the DA governs it governs well and delivers services to all residents.

Regards

Andrew Whitfield, MP
DA Tsitsi-Kouga Constituency Leader

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