MBOMBELA – “I’m sorry to disappoint anyone who thought they were having breakfast with the singer,” joked Neil Diamond, municipal manager of the City of Mbombela Local Municipality.
Chamber chairman, Past TJ Maré, welcomed the local business owners, employees and entrepreneurs.

 
He prayed for wisdom for the municipality as well as the entire Mbombela. Diamond dived right in by presenting his plan to secure a bright future for the municipality.

“The future of Mbombela is based on three pillars, tourism, agriculture and commerce.We want to be a city of excellence but unfortunately it takes money to be excellent,” he said.”We are in the process of finalising a long-term financial plan. We still have a lot of debt, but I have managed to reduce that.”

 

Diamond also said that he cut out all food supplies for meetings. “We can’t sit there and eat while we tell our citizens that we don’t have money to supply basic services,” he said. This was met with a loud applause by the audience.

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One of the questions that was raised by a concerned audience member was about the protests on the R40 and what the municipality is doing to stop the protesters from blocking the road.

 
The municipal manager replied, “We are in discussions with these members of the community. What we must remember is that there are many residents living there who don’t have what we have and they protest because they want their voices to be heard. I want you to exercise patience on this matter while the municipality is solving the problem.”

 
It seems as though Diamond has something in common with his namesake’s lyrics to the song “Longfellow serenade”: “Let me make your dreams come true”.