UGU District Municipality has a serious problem with construction mafia.
The illegal business forums demand that the municipality on KZN's south coast give them contracts by force and if their demands aren't met, they sabotage the infrastructure.
Ugu Mayor Sikhumbuzo Mqadi told the Portfolio Committee on Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) and the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) on Wednesday, 28 January, that damage to infrastructure negatively impacts the municipality.
He said the district, which consists of Ray Nkonyeni, Umdoni, Umzumbe and Umuziwabantu local municipalities, has a water crisis.
He pointed out that the major problem was at Ray Nkonyeni.
"They want us to deploy their water tankers to the area. We no longer deploy external water tankers because we decided to deploy our own," said Mqadi.
The mayor said whether the mafia intentionally destroys the municipalities' property, it won't change the decision not to outsource water tankers.
"They don't get anything from that process," he said.
Mqadi said the problem of damage to government property is subsiding.
The Parliament's committees are on a joint oversight visit to the province following a briefing by the Auditor-General of South Africa (Agsa) on the 2023-2024 local government audit outcomes, which highlighted a persistent trend of poor audit results across municipalities.
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Mqadi told the members that they have projects that are going to mitigate the water supply problems.
"One in KwaMadlala is 99% complete. We're hoping to open it before March," he said.
He called on a higher level of government to help them investigate damage to property.
Mqadi applauded interventions received from both national and provincial governments, which he claimed have contributed to the municipality's financial recovery and improved service delivery.
"We've turned the corner, but we haven't arrived where we want to be," he said.
Ugu chief financial officer Kushi Audan admitted that for quite some time they've been unable to pay service providers within a stipulated period of time, but there's improvement.
"That remains a problem as it was even highlighted by the Auditor-General. So, what are we doing to fix that? There's a simple formula that would take us out of this specific ongoing challenge, and that's to increase our revenue and decrease our costs," he said.
He said as part of revenue enhancement strategies, the municipality offers customers discounts when they pay for services.
