Merger of municipalities is still on
A name for the new municipality has not yet been decided.
IT hasn’t yet been established whether the merger between Ezinqoleni and Hibiscus Coast Municipality will affect the wards.
“It is up to the Municipal Demarcation Board to decide the ward boundaries,” said HCM municipal manager Max Mbili at a press briefing held at the municipality’s council chambers on Tuesday.
The board has decided to disestablish the two municipalities and to form a new municipality. The name for the new municipality hasn’t yet been decided.
In light of this, new committees have been formed to deal with the transformation phase of the disestablishment and the formation of the new municipality.
The committees are: technical change management committee which comprises senior managers from Ezinqoleni and Hibiscus Coast Municipality, SALGA and Cogta. There is also a political change management committee which consist of mayors from both municipalities, speakers, executive committee members and Amakhosi.
These committees will embark upon the transformation phase which promotes the transitional measures to facilitate the restructuring of municipalities affected by the determination of boundaries.
The Hibiscus Coast Municipality and Ezinqoleni Municipality are part of the 15 KwaZulu-Natal municipalities which will be merged with others in 2016, to reduce the number of local governments in the province from 61 to 54.
Merger talks started in April last year, when the board held consultations to hear the public’s opinion on the merger.
Some HCM residents and ratepayers objected to this merger, saying the municipality was already battling with service delivery, and was afraid that HCM wouldn’t be able to serve a bigger municipality.
In August last year HCM’s executive committee unanimously agreed to support the resolution of the board.
