Mayor's Blog

Throughout this period the government has been burning the midnight oil in an effort to improve the lives of all South Africans, particularly those who live in abject poverty. In 2001 the government identified Inanda and KwaMashu as areas that needed special attention. Later, Ntuzuma was added to form INK.

The Municipality now deals with five priority areas: INK, Cato Manor, the Inner Thekwini Regeneration and Urban Renewal Programme (iTrump), the South Durban Basin and the Rural Area Based Management. The national government proposed urban renewal programmes as a way to fight unemployment, social dislocation, poverty and other social ills. Besides being poor, these areas have inadequate infrastructure. The aim of establishing area based management and urban renewal programmes was to facilitate joint government action to reduce poverty and unemployment by improving the living conditions and empowering citizens to realize their potential.

In Cato Manor there has been a vast improvement in infrastructural development and in the lives of people. Some people have formed co-operatives; others have gone for skills development. The Municipality has urban and rural areas within its borders and this calls for different interventions. Rural communities are more interested in the land because they are focused on agriculture. The emphasis in their case will be on empowering them to excel in what they do best.

The Area Based Management teams have done a wonderful job in acting as facilitators. Through their efforts partnerships have materialised between residents and business people. There has been infrastructural development as well as skills development and job creation. The government is truly showing its commitment to pushing back the frontiers of poverty. Construction projects, including hospitals, clinics, malls and roadworks are under way day in and day out, contributing vastly to poverty alleviation.

September is national Heritage Month, an opportunity to celebrate those things that make South Africa unique. This is time for us to promote understanding, tolerance, respect, unity, social cohesion and national identity.

We are a country with a rich heritage and many diverse groups. Yet it is in unity in this diversity that we derive our strength. Heritage Day, on 24 September, lets us display our different cultural heritages and celebrate our rainbow nation. And as we celebrate, let us concentrate on those things that unite us as a nation and cast aside those things that foster division.

Let us remember the words of Thabo Mbeki, who in a 1996 while deputy president, in speech to parliament on the occasion of the adoption of the Constitutional Bill, said: “A human presence among all these, a feature on the face of our native land thus defined, I know that none dare challenge me when I say – I am an African”. These words remain very relevant, especially at this juncture in our democracy. The important thing is that we are all citizens of this country. We are South Africans, and should pride ourselves in that.

As we celebrate Heritage Day let us do so with one thing in mind – that we are all important pieces of this puzzle called South Africa. Each piece of the puzzle is important so that we can get a complete picture. If one piece is missing, then the puzzle will not make sense because of just that one piece missing. Our young people should take the centre stage during these celebrations because they are the future of our country.

They should be the ones organising these celebrations. And they should not only concentrate on a particular race, but invite everybody so that, indeed, we truly are a rainbow nation. Let us remember what our forefathers did. Let us recall the times of King Shaka, who united tribes with different cultural heritages and made them one, formidable Zulu nation. Let us forget about our physical differences and concentrate on those things that unite us a nation.

Some scientists view global warming as a threat to the Earth’s biodiversity. More and more species face extinction and the long-term future of human life looks increasingly uncertain. Terrible disasters, including tsunamis, mudslides and cyclones, some the possible consequence of the changing climate, have hit Earth during our lifetimes.

Global warming and its effects are unpredictable. No amount of precautionary measures can guarantee our safety. The only precaution that can be taken is to move as far away as possible from areas considered to be at risk, but this is often impossible. There has to be other plans. The government is seeking to put laws and regulations in place to reduce the pollution of the atmosphere. If these measures could be enforced, the harmful effects of pollution would be reduced.

The government has taken upon itself the responsibility of educating and encouraging people to guard and protect themselves against the effects of global warming.

We as citizens have a role to play in making sure we do all in our power to avoid contributing to those things that accelerate the rate of global warming. Greening our environment is one of the solutions we should consider. We have to plant as many trees as we possibly can.

It is the responsibility of citizens to throw their weight behind this important campaign. If we do not look after our surroundings and fail to protect the atmosphere, then we shall be doing ourselves down.

To set the record straight, I believe the initiative is worthy and entirely deserving of all the attention it receives. Women’s month is important to us because it is an opportunity to officially recognise and pay tribute to the contribution women made in our country’s struggle for freedom. For many years women have been looked down upon. As a matter of fact, they have often been relegated to the level and status of children.

This is partly the consequence of our cultural background, but as responsible citizens we need to understand that culture is dynamic. We should allow it to develop and take its natural course. Women played a major role in our struggle for liberation. The women’s march to the Union Buildings in Pretoria, in 1956, in protest against the pass laws, shook the world. Women such as Lillian Ngoyi were in the forefront of the struggle. She led a march of more than 20 000women of all races, in a move wholly initiated by women.

Former President Nelson Mandela once wrote: “Freedom cannot be achieved unless women have been emancipated from all forms of oppression”. The African National Congress has always fought against the oppression of women. As early as the 1950s, the ANC had already included women in its ranks in senior decision making committees.

So we are recognising women this month because it was in August of 1956 that women vowed to face the apartheid regime head on. We are aware that the total liberation of women from oppression cannot happen overnight. For this reason, it remains our duty to change the mentality of certain individuals so that they come to view women as their equals. We salute all women, especially for their role in the liberation struggle by fighting oppression.

To them we say Igama Lamakhosikazi Malibongwe. (Let us salute the role of women!)

It was heartwarming to watch this great man making an appearance on television after a long period of in activity. I was particularly pleased because I thought of how blessed we are in Kwa Zulu-Natal to have a man of his stature linked to the province. Mandela has always had a special relationship with this city. In one of his speeches he once said that when he left his hometown as a young man he was torn between coming to Durban and going to Johannesburg.

He decided on Johannesburg because he had friends and relatives who worked on the mines there. Durban was the first city to give him the freedom of the city in 1999. He made the Kwa Zulu-Natal province proud when, in our first democratic elections in 1994, he cast his vote at Inanda’s Ohlange Institute, which is in eThekwini.

Mandela’s association with this province dates back to the early 1960s, when he surprised everyone by showing up at a meeting –The All Africa Symposium, where no one expected him because of the risks involved in him attending. At that meeting, in Pietermaritzburg, he made a moving speech, which sent a chill down the spines of many attending. Afterwards, he was smuggled out to avoid the police security branch.

Upon his release in 1990, he spent some time before coming to Durban and in one of his interviews when he was asked if he had any plans of visiting the leader of the IFP, Inkosi Mangosuthu Buthelezi, he said he needed to collect himself before coming to Durban. And when he came to Durban it was not an in-and-out situation like he did in other cities. He spent a night in this city.

We are indeed blessed to have a man of his calibre and humility associated with our city.

- Mayor Obed Mlaba

Good things have happened and all along we were sure 2008 was going to be a good year, until we were disappointed by the power outages. We dealt with that problem and as we were preparing to focus on the year ahead, we were disturbed by the attacks on foreigners. Surely, we have reached a stage in our democracy where we should be able to transcend such senseless violence. Now that we have crossed that bridge, we face the challenge of ensuring that all our people are in possession of identity documents.

As we prepare for the national elections next year, we should begin to educate all those who have yet to understand the importance of their votes in determining the direction this country should take, politically. The next two years will keep us all very busy. After the national elections we shall focus our attention on the 2010 World Cup.

This is why we need to start now making sure that all those who have reached a legal age to have an identity document should apply so that they are not left out when the time for voting comes. Applying for identity documents timeously will guarantee people have enough time to register with the Independent Electoral Commission as voters.

I want to plead with our people, especially those who are in higher positions, to start educating their fellows on voting procedures.

The elections should be run in a manner that will show the world that we are indeed a democracy and all what we do is done in a democratic manner. The struggle that we engaged in more than 300 years ago is not over yet. There are people out there who still think we shall fail to run this country and we shall go back to them begging that they come back and rule us. Let us not play into their hands.

- Mayor Obed Mlaba

For the past few weeks we have witnessed senseless killings of foreign people by South Africans who were hell bent on achieving their criminal goals, masquerading them as xenophobia. A number of innocent lives were lost and hundreds of these foreigners lost their belongings in the process. Although these so-called xenophobic killings were of great proportions, we are glad that they did not spread throughout the country.

In our province it was just isolated incidents that occurred but sanity soon prevailed. It is a fact that people from KwaZulu-Natal are very accommodative to others. It was just a few criminal elements that wanted to taint the good image of our province.
 
The Police Service acted promptly and with authority. This is a job well done and they need to be commended. We are not so clear about the intentions of those who started these violent acts, except to say that we noticed a high level of criminal activities during that period. I am very pleased by the reaction of the African states whose citizens were attacked. They showed a great level of maturity and understood that these killings were motivated by criminality.

We are all aware of the mixed feelings which our people had before our national soccer team went to play in Nigeria. Some people were saying members of Bafana Bafana would be killed in Nigeria, but instead they were given a warm welcome.

This is what we expect other countries to do. The South African government is dealing with the issue and solutions to these problems will soon be found. Some of these foreigners have begun going back to the communities they were living in before they were attacked. As government, we would be failing in our duties if we do not condemn these senseless killings.

Xenophobia, in its all forms is totally unacceptable and our government will do all within its power to see to it that the same does not reoccur. Our plea to the local people is that they should give these people some space and if there are some of them who engage in criminal activities, let them report such people to the relevant authorities who will allow the law to take its course.

When Fifa President, Sepp Blatter announced that South Africa had been selected to host the 2010 World Cup, the news was received indifferent fashions by different people. There are those skeptics who thought South Africa would not be able to host such an august event. They cited many reasons for this, reasons which were of concern to the government too. There were some who saw the announcement as the start of a road to riches. It is true that our government would like to see many South Africans benefiting from this event.

It is true there are those who are going to make a fortune out of this event and there are also those who will not benefit at all. Yes, the country will benefit and those who do not benefit directly will still gain because the country will be able to provide other services, which it otherwise would not have been able to provide.

Fifa officials recently visited Durban to inspect the progress made in building the stadiums, and we were excited by the report we received. Fifa was excite  to learn that we were progressing well and that the Moses Mabhida stadium was expected to be completed at least two months ahead of schedule. But preparing for the World Cup is not about stadiums alone.

Our information technology and transport system have to be up to world standard. Law enforcement is another important aspect for a successful World Cup. And I am pleased to see that there has been a significant drop in crime in our city. This is according to a recent Criminal Analysis conducted by the Metro Police and South African Police Services. We are not yet where we want to be but we are getting there. The involvement of our people in fighting crime has contributed immensely to this drop in crime. I challenge our communities to keep on reporting criminals.

In the end, our city and country will be the winner. We are already enjoying some of the spin-offs of the 2010 World Cup.

Obed Mlaba
EThekwini Mayor