Bid to trim a R500 000 Municipal strategic planning workshop
However, he was firm that the meeting should be out of town to prevent delegates from 'losing concentration'. E
Do Councillors lose concentration when workshops are held in town? Do they dodge and sneak off home?
Mayor, Richard Mbatha, seems to think so when he made a passionate appeal for a strategic planning workshop, with a R500 000 budget, to be held outside of Endumeni.
The proposal is for around 60 delegates, comprising Councillors, municipal management and Government representatives from COGTA and treasury to go to the South Coast to ‘strategise’.
Mayor Mbatha agreed with all Councillors who called for the budget to be slashed and for no more than around 20 or so delegates to attend.
However, he was firm that the meeting should be out of town to prevent delegates from ‘losing concentration’. Even he knows that ‘local is lekker’.
Councillor Thulani Mahaye agreed with the principle but wanted the budget cut and the meeting kept local. Councillor SB Mdlluli shared this sentiment and said he was ‘against paid holidays on the south coast and that Endumeni had venues that would accommodate the municipality’.
The DA’s Dr Sandy Bedassi said taking ’60 people out of the office would bring service delivery to a halt for three days while colleague, Anthon Raubenheimer, said in terms of circular 63, National Treasury had told municipalities to get back to basics and keep all workshops within their boundaries.
In the end, acting municipal manager, Desi Padayachee, was directed to draw up a plan to cut the number of delegates and the budget.
