The DA in KwaZulu-Natal will on Sunday unveil its ward candidates running for office in the Msunduzi Local Municipality for the upcoming local government elections in November.
With just over two weeks until voters mark their ballots, DA leader in KZN Francois Rodgers will announce the party’s candidates for Msunduzi at the Pietermaritzburg City Hall.
Rodgers said the candidates have undergone a “gruelling” session of interviews to ensure they were capable of performing their duties at the highest level.
With 342 672 voters registered for the upcoming local elections, Msunduzi accounts for just over 6% of voters registered in KZN.
Pietermaritzburg, the capital city of KZN, has often been dubbed the province’s dirtiest city, which has become even worse in recent months after waste workers embarked on a strike that left rubbish piled up on the streets for days.
The workers, according to reports, went on strike over job grading and a lack of uniforms, but the South African Municipal Workers Union (Samwu) said their members in the waste management unit denied that they were on strike.
The union said members had not gone to work because of grievances they said they had directed to management, but which were allegedly ignored.
Samwu leader in Midlands Linda Gcabashe said the workers were complaining that the level of compensation received was the lowest in the municipality.
DA councillor in the Northdale area Rooksana Ahmed said if the rubbish isn’t collected for one day, the impact is huge.
“What is happening there is what we have been warning about for the longest time, that the municipality should stop employing politically-active individuals under the cadre deployment policy, because it now seems that these workers have the upper hand,” Ahmed said.
Earlier this year, with consumer debt reaching R5 billion, the City’s audit committee warned that the municipality’s ballooning consumer debt was a risk and threat to its viability.
Chairperson of the committee Bronwyn Kemp told councillors the debt was a serious concern, referring to a report which was presented to the municipal council in July.
The DA lost its status as the official opposition party in KZN to the IFP in the last national elections, but while it is not a direct focus at present, if the party can reclaim territory in November, Rodgers believes it may set the stage to challenge the IFP for the official opposition seat.
Political Bureau