Familiar issues flagged in KwaDukuza
The best performing business units were Economic Development and Planning and Community Safety, both of which met 100% of their targets, while the worst was Civil Engineering and Electrical Engineering, which achieved 53% and 67% respectively.
KwaDukuza Municipality’s (KDM) business units met or exceeded 78% of their fourth quarter performance assessments, but some familiar issues persist.
KDM sets targets for itself in every quarter as part of municipal legislation around the Integrated Development Plan (IDP), the successes and failures of which are presented to council as a Performance Management Systems report.
In the fourth quarter of the previous financial year (April – June 2023), 67 of 86 targets were met or exceeded, seven were in progress but not complete, and 12 (14%) were not met at all.
Unmet targets should not exceed 5%.
The best performing business units were Economic Development and Planning and Community Safety, both of which met 100% of their targets, while the worst was Civil Engineering and Electrical Engineering, which achieved 53% and 67% respectively.
Civil Engineering missed its goals on three projects, including delivery of housing units, retaining walls and a sports field in Groutville.
Insufficient funds, planning delays and labour disputes were blamed.
“I would like to see a plan on how labour disputes will be mitigated going forward, mutual benefit must be achieved,” said ActionSA PR councillor, Stephne Ashworth.
The Electrical Engineering unit, which has long come under fire for ailing infrastructure, was again cited for its soaring energy losses and a botched substation repair job.
Where an energy loss reduction was targeted, the unit instead lost a further R25-million, increasing the losses to 26%.
Elsewhere, a planned 9MV upgrade to substations in KwaDukuza did not take place after failure to appoint a contractor.
Councillors again flagged the losses, but there appears to be little in the way of consequence management for the electrical unit which has lost R680-million in the last three years.
“It’s all well and good to bring action plans, but nothing is changing. If these plans are not working then we need new ones, because it doesn’t seem people are serious about energy losses,” said African National Congress ward councillor and speaker of council, Dolly Govender.
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