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State of the Metro feast – a bad story to tell

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The DA in Nelson Mandela Bay will not attend the more than R300 000 ‘State of the Metro Address and Feast’ on Friday. The timing of this event on the eve of elections is suspicious and the expenditure is unconscionable.

This smoke and mirrors event is symptomatic of the extravagance of Jacob Zuma’s ANC and is nothing more than an attempt by the ruling party to find “good stories” to tell just weeks before the election. Why can the Council not engage stakeholders and communities through the normal public participation programmes?

The DA knows the real stories of maladministration, corruption and wasteful expenditure and will not endorse an unscheduled meeting that seeks to gloss over reality.

The DA believes that the real state of the Metro is a bad story to tell.

The Real State of the Metro:

  • R471.6 million unauthorized irregular and wasteful expenditure;
  • R4 billion backlog infrastructure;
  • More than R208.4 million water losses;
  • More than R200 million electricity losses;
  • Over R140 million in uncollected traffic fines;
  • Illegal dumping due to failure to implement weekly collection to all wards;
  • More than 22 000 bucket toilets;
  • Failure to deal decisively with forensic investigations into fraud and maladministration eg. Kabuso Report and Pikoli Report;
  • Failure to implement operational efficiency work plan; and
  • Slow pace of housing delivery.

The DA has written to the Speaker’s Office requesting that DA councillors be excluded from the catering budget for this extravagant feast. We will not be party to such unnecessary expenditure while our Metro crumbles.

In the DA led Western Cape Legislature the State of the Province Address was held in the Chamber and finger snacks were served at its conclusion to loud grumbles from the ANC benches.

Nelson Mandela Bay deserves an efficient and effective DA led Council, not a bloated and out of touch ANC led Council. The time for change is now.

On the 7th of May voters must send the ANC a loud message that enough is enough.

Retief Odendaal

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Port Elizabethan

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