eThekwini Municipality
A Smart and Caring CityWriter: Matthew StaffProject Manager: Nick Norris As one of the most significant regions of, historically, Africa’s most economically significant country, eThekwini Municipality in South Africa continues to work towards its 2030 vision of becoming the most caring and liveable city in the country.Targeting a Durban city which enables all citizens to live together in harmony, the organisational structure working tirelessly behind the scenes tackles a plethora of cultural, industrial, social, economical and political challenges each and every day to veer the municipality closer to this ideal in the KwaZulu-Natal province.As the third largest city in the country, comprising a population of more than three million people, it is largely acknowledged for housing the best managed and busiest port on the continent, and is subsequently a tourism hub thanks to its climate and coastline also.This takes the personnel count considerably higher for a local government which has far more than general upkeep to address on an annual basis.Spanning key areas of tourism, the environment, community involvement, housing, sustainability, public services, pensions, energy, technology and engineering, transport, health, leisure, safety and sanitation; dropping the ball even slightly across any of these facets would be disastrous for a city with such high aspirations.“We are a diverse African city that is focused on citywide investment, growing our economy and creating a better quality of life. In Durban we play hard and we work hard,” the Municipality stated. “It’s not a coincidence that we attract so many local and international tourists on a daily basis. We are a…
eThekwini Municipality
Living in harmony eThekwini is the largest City in the KwaZulu-Natal and the third largest city in the country. Municipal spokesperson Thabo Mofokeng answers our questions in this exclusive Q&A. Writer Ian Armitage Project manager Stuart Platt We've featured eThekwini Municipality several times in recent years under our previous incarnation, South Africa Magazine. We've interviewed majors, we've talked to supply chain and service specialists, and we've talked to countless spokespeople and officials. Their goals were all the same – speed up service delivery, root out corruption and make Durban Africa's most caring and liveable city by 2030. The eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality was created in 2000 and is often described by peers as Africa's best run and financially strongest local government. As it continues to make strides forward, we talk to Municipal spokesperson Thabo Mofokeng in this exclusive Q&A. Thabo, congratulations to you on the progress the municipality is making. What are your goals now? A lot of progress has been made towards improving the living conditions of the people of eThekwini. The vast majority of our people already enjoy basic services like piped water, electricity, sanitation and access roads as well as public amenities like libraries and clinics. As you are aware these were only enjoyed by a few during the past establishment. The City has a capital budget of over R5 billion and the majority of this goes towards basic services. While doing all this we recognise that there's still a lot of work that needs to be done, especially due to rapid urbanisation and…
