Young, energetic and willing to admit to the challenges ahead and what needs to be done to rebuild confidence, new Endumeni Mayor, Mcebo Mkhize, says he has hit the ground running.

Flighted as the youngest Mayor in KZN, Mkhize (27), says he is not bothered by the label but says respecting one’s elders is ‘very important’ to him.

“As a God-fearing man, I believe firmly in the ten commandments one of which is to respect your parents i.e. your elders. While I am leading the municipality my goal is to unite Councillors from the other represented political parties to bring about political stability in Endumeni,” Mkhize told the Courier in a one-on-one interview.

He inherits a hot seat which has seen Endumeni’s well-documented troubles hit the headlines.

Born on a farm just outside Dundee, Mkhize schooled in the Rorke’s Drift area and matriculated at Sihayo High School after which he studied electrical engineering.

It was there that his political career took off and he was twice elected Student Representative Council chairperson.

From there he became an intern at Umzinyathi District Municipality as a youth development officer – a post he made his own prior to his election as Mayor.

Mkhize was also chairman of the IFP Youth Brigade in the Endumeni area for five years.

“My passion is community development. I like to see people smile regardless of any political affiliations. I also have a passion for agriculture – it’s the basis of sustaining life,” he said indicating his trousers, muddied from attending a municipal event where a new fence was put up around a community garden.

When asked how new investment can be attracted to the town to ease the chronic jobless rate, Mkhize replied in one word: “Stability.”

He is firm that ‘investors do not like chaos’.

“From stability (in the municipality) we can tackle these challenges. Create a public sector (the municipality, government departments) and private sector (our major businesses agriculture, mining) partnership to tackle unemployment. Working together we can come up with out of the box ideas to create co-operatives to get people working and creating an income.”

Mkhize stressed the importance of integrating civil society such as faith-based organisations, civic and residents’ association to come on board to tackle issues for the collective good.

Asked about the staggering Eskom debt – sitting at around R190-million – that is hampering Endumeni’s budget and ability to deliver services, Mkhize said as the Mayor he is well aware that it is his duty to champion revenue collection.

“We are certainly not folding arms and know that to put this municipality on the right track we have to up revenue collection to provide services. We have made the smooth migration to upgrade all the prepaid meters and will be applying for national funding to install smart meters that are tamper-proof.”

Mkhize described as his first week in office as ‘very busy’ with visits to Wasbank, Thelaphi and in the Glencoe area to do oversight and the opening of the revamped Sithembile sports stadium.

Asked about keeping young people busy during the long summer holidays, Mkhize said he and his councillors will support any private endeavours to organise sporting, cultural and other events that will provide recreation.

Wrapping up, Mkhize said he was looking forward to solidifying the council regardless of politics to create a united, stable town.

“I am here walk my talk. And that’s it.”

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