RNM slammed for refusing donation to fix road
It is important to remember that we require active citizenry and that means people will put their hands up, whether it is through organisations or also private citizens, it must be embraced by the local municipalities.
The Ad Hoc Joint Committee said it was disturbed to hear that Ray Nkonyeni Municipality never took up an offer from a local resident to help fix a part of Valley Road in Port Shepstone which was severely affected by the 2017 floods.
The committee on Flood Disaster Relief and Recovery visited Valley Road on Wednesday to assess disaster relief interventions in areas that were affected by the April 2022 floods.
Chairperson of the committee Cedric Frolick said it is quite disturbing to have heard that a local resident who is a building contractor that has done civil engineering work for the municipality, made an offer to the municipality to fix Valley Road but the offer was never taken up.
“It is important to remember that we require active citizenry and that means people will put their hands up, whether it is through organisations or also private citizens, it must be embraced by the local municipalities. The committee is of the view that all types of support must be embraced, it must be regularised and it must be done in the proper legal way,” said Frolick.
Ray Nkonyeni’s municipal manager, Max Mbili told the committee that it was the first time he was hearing about the offer.
Mbili said he also asked the mayor about the offer, adding that the ward councillor, unfortunately, did not share that information about the offer with the municipality.
However, Ward 18 councillor Douglas Rawlins told Fever that the municipal manager is not being truthful.
Rawlins said he was given the proposal by a resident who is most affected by the floods, adding that he shared that proposal with the municipal manager and the previous Head of Department (HOD) for technical services.
“I have also taken the new HOD around the area and I told them verbally and for them to say they don’t know about it is a little bit ingenious because it was also raised in council, we told them that we have this offer. I got emails from the resident who wanted to help which I forwarded to the municipal manager and the HOD but nothing happened, it has been an ongoing issue for a long time,” said Rawlins.
Meanwhile, Frolick said they simply cannot afford a situation where a local municipality walks away from an offer and then expects the committee to motivate for additional financial resources to do exactly what the donor wanted to do.
“This is unacceptable and we will come back to this area to see the progress the municipality has made in repairing this road,” he said.
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