Leader of the African Democratic Change (ADeC) councillor Visvin Reddy has criticised calls by the DA to dissolve the eThekwini Municipality council, describing them as misguided.
“Despite serious lapses in leadership and a steady decline in service delivery, the DA's motion to dissolve the eThekwini Municipality is misguided, misinformed, and not in the interests of the citizens of Durban,” Reddy said.
The DA has put forward a motion calling for the council to be dissolved amid serious service delivery failures including prolonged water outages that has sparked anger amongst community members.
Reddy said: “If the DA were to succeed in dissolving the eThekwini Municipality without removing the ANC from the province, Durban will once again be back in the hands of the ANC.
“The MEC (for cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs) is an ANC appointee with a clear majority to either block the intervention or appoint a pro-ANC administrator that will report directly to the ANC, leaving no benefit to the citizens of the city.
“In the end, the only way for citizens to truly effect change is to vote the ANC out of provincial and national government.”
Last week the mayor of eThekwini Mxolisi Kaunda narrowly survived a motion looking to boot him out of the seat that was brought by the IFP.
In a statement following the motion, DA caucus leader Thabani Mthethwa said: “The narrow margin by which Kaunda survived this motion against him further proves that his days are numbered. This also gives us further confidence that we are on the right track in calling for his removal as well as the complete dissolution of the eThekwini council.”
The Mercury