Organised business in the OR Tambo district wants to be considered for an active role in the awarding of tenders for municipal projects.
Speaking to the Dispatch on the sidelines of a meet-and-greet session with King Sabata Dalindyebo municipality’s new leadership led by mayor Nyaniso Nelani on Wednesday, Mthatha businessman and OR Tambo Business Chamber secretary-general Dr Andile Nontso said local SMMEs were not benefiting from municipal tenders.
“We want to serve in the adjudication and [bid] evaluation committees at KSD within their supply chain process. SMMEs are not participating in business because they compete with officials and politicians.
“We want to assist, even if we are just given observer status.”
But asked about this, Nelani said no politicians or ordinary members of the public were allowed, by law, to form part of the municipality's bid adjudication committees.
Politicians’ job was to monitor the process through reports submitted by the various committees to the council.
Nontso said they also wanted a commitment from Nelani’s council about the cleaning up of Mthatha. The city was an eyesore, particularly to outside investors.
Apart from the filth, roads were littered with potholes while robots were often not working.
“This stops investors from coming here. There must a clear time frame and commitment on who is going to clean it, how and when.”
They also wanted KSD to champion the development of a railway line between Mthatha and Kokstad.
He called for the municipality to continue with turning some city streets into one-way streets to address traffic congestion.
In addition, villages needed rural hubs comprising government services and retail outlets to stop the influx of people into Mthatha.
He said power outages were killing a lot of SMMEs in Mthatha, and he called for a special billing system for them. They were billed in the same way as major businesses like big food retail shops and banks by OR Tambo district municipality for water and KSD for electricity.
Nelani, meanwhile, extended an olive branch to the business community, telling them the fate of KSD municipality lay in their hands.
It was important that the municipality forged a clear working relationship with them.
“This is your municipality,” he said.
The R5bn presidential intervention package announced by former president Jacob Zuma in 2009 had done a lot to bring new infrastructure to Mthatha and its surroundings, including a state-of-the-art airport and roads.
He said the municipality was revising its 2030 vision. Among key concept documents formulated was the plan to turn Mthatha into a smart city using technology and innovation as well as a “deliberate” programme to transform KSD into a metro by 2026.
As part of reconstructing the municipality’s dented image, they had adopted a “Kigali model” to pursue the cleaning, greening and beautifying of towns, townships and suburbs in KSD.
Kigali, capital of Rwanda, was described as the cleanest city in Africa.
Nelani said the council would focus on four pillars to turn the municipality around: infrastructure investment, economic investment, institutional development and service delivery enhancement.
He promised that apart from the creation of special economic zones and the Vulindlela Industrial Hub near Mthatha’s Southernwood suburb, the municipality was moving towards establishing business parks in both Coffee Bay and Mqanduli, and the municipality had appointed a contractor to tar Mqanduli’s roads.
“We have received a lot of bad publicity, especially on social media, which impacted negatively on our image. So we have a lot of work to do as leaders.”
DispatchLIVE
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.