eThekwini festive season successful despite challenges, negative publicity: mayor

eThekwini mayor Mxolisi Kaunda insists the city had a successful festive season despite challenges stemming from the April floods and a concerted "negative publicity campaign".

“Despite the challenges we experienced in 2022 because of floods, we are proud that again Durban lived up to its tag of being Africa’s playground. This was demonstrated by thousands of visitors who flocked to our beaches, promenade, restaurants, hotels and B&Bs,” he said.

He conceded, however, numbers were down, with about 720,000 visitors compared to pre-Covid-19 numbers of 980,000 in 2019.

“The loss in the number of visitors was a given, considering the challenges we were faced with, and there we people running campaigns telling people to not come here. In America you don’t see the opposition telling people they must not visit because there are problems,” he said.

“Instead you see the opposition complementing the work so that visitors come, because when you attract visitors it also affects the economy.”

Kaunda said the city only had 12 beaches and 25 swimming pools open for swimming during the festive season, though more have been opened since.

Kaunda gave a post-festive season update at the Durban city hall on Thursday.

He credited the city’s warm summer weather and sea activities, as well as “signature events” such as the Durban Jazz Festival and Fact Durban Rocks, along with successfully hosting sports matches between Kaizer Chiefs and Lamontville Golden Arrows, and the Bulls and Sharks, for pulling in visitors.

“All these activities brought thousands of visitors to the city as the accommodation occupancy rate reached 65%. This translates into 702,735 visitors with a direct spend of R1.5bn, over R3.8bn contribution to GDP and 7,775 jobs,” he said.

The mayor pinned the city’s performance down to the “festive season integrated safety plan” that was launched with the provincial government and the deployment of new SAPS and metro police recruits in December.

“As a result of heightened police visibility, few incidents of crime and road crashes were reported during this festive season. We are also pleased that due to our systematic preparation and planning we only saw 47 separated children who were reunited with their families within 24 hours.”

As a result of this integrated approach to law enforcement, he said they were able to achieve the following results from December 15 2022 to January 11 2023:

• 15,617 fines issued;
• 1,503 vehicles stopped and searched; and
• 70 compliance inspections to businesses.

Their strategy is not to complain but to fix infrastructure, especially sanitation, he said.

“Since September, the city embarked on an aggressive cleaning campaign to keep the city clean and most importantly create a conducive climate for investment.”

He revealed that they had launched another campaign on Thursday, covering 13 precincts the CBD, city hall, ICC, Albert Park, Warwick Junction, Moses Mabhida Stadium, Point, South Beach, North Beach, Umgeni, Musgrave, Greyville and Dalton Hostel.

A comprehensive operational plan has been developed which focuses on the following activities:

• blocked drains;
• overgrown grass and trees;
• street lighting;
• unauthorised building works;
• water and sewer leaks;
• enforcement of bylaws;
• bad buildings;
• traffic congestion;
• open trenches on sidewalks;
• potholes;
• damaged manhole covers;
• homelessness; and
• illegal dumping.

“Our teams are on the ground identifying challenges in other precincts, particularly in the secondary CBDs which include Pinetown, Isipingo, Verulam and oThongathi,” he said.

“We are pleased to report that our cleaning campaign is beginning to yield positive results as the levels of cleanliness have improved in some parts of the CBD. The campaign we have launched today will be complemented by an intensive education drive to encourage residents to keep their environment clean.”

Kaunda said 120 mass care centres, which accommodated 8,541 families who were victims of the April floods, had been closed by December 23 in keeping with a promise to rehome them before Christmas.

He also addressed the water supply interruptions in the city’s northern townships, which he said were caused by inadequate supply of water from the Durban Heights water treatment works to reservoirs in Phoenix, Verulam and Ntuzuma.

Kaunda said he was optimistic the commissioning of reservoir 3 of the treatment plant would address the challenge.

“Other areas that have been experiencing water supply challenges include Umlazi and Folweni. These challenges were caused by several pipe bursts from the trunk main supplying water to these areas from Chatsworth. Working with Umgeni Water, we are finalising plans to replace this bulk pipe at an estimated cost of R900m.

“While we have been able to repair this pipe, we still have the challenge of prolonged load-shedding which makes it difficult to pump water to the affected areas. However, our teams are working tirelessly to restore water supply in Umlazi and Folweni by the close of business today. While we are addressing this situation, we have dispatched water tankers as an interim measure.”

Hambanathi was experiencing similar challenges, he added. “To increase the flow from the water works, the municipality will install a second pump by the end of this month. This intervention will stabilise water supply in Hambanathi.”

Kaunda will meet Cogta MEC Sihle Zikalala and Umgeni Water to finalise plans to address water challenges in the city. Water and sanitation MEC Senzo Mchunu is also set to provide an update on the progress Umgeni Water has made in repairing the Durban Heights water treatment plant on Friday.

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