SEPTEMBER is an important month on the country’s events calendar, as it is a time where we honour and celebrate our diverse culture and rich heritage. We want to thank all the City councillors and officials who worked diligently to ensure that we hosted various programmes that promoted our rich cultural heritage. This month, we also hosted a welcoming function at the King Shaka International Airport in honour of our sport stars Mpumelelo Mhlongo, the Paralympian Gold Medallist and the Sharks who won the Currie Cup recently.

This gesture is important as it demonstrates that the City recognises the sterling work done by our athletes in putting eThekwini on the world map. In an effort to preserve our environment, the City recently led the International Coastal Clean-up campaign. This event brought together different stakeholders to address issues that threaten the environment, particularly coastal areas. Our efforts to fight crime in the City received a major boost when the Minister of Police announced bold plans to collaborate with eThekwini Municipality to combat crime. This initiative will result in the signing of a collaborative agreement between the Metro Police and the South African Police Service to ensure maximum utilisation of resources and a high level of integration. What makes this initiative even more significant is that going forward, the Metro Police and the SAPS will be conducting joint operations.

Still on collaborative agreements, this week we received a delegation from the cities of Windhoek (Namibia) and Bremen (Germany) for a historic signing of a tripartite agreement
to strengthen economic ties and knowledge exchange. The signing ceremony took place at the Inkosi Albert Luthuli Convention Centre on 26 September. We strongly believe that sister city agreements are crucial in positioning eThekwini as a globally competitive City. We want to be able to share expertise and best practices in areas such as climate change, infrastructure development, and growing our tourism sector. Finally, the summer season is upon us, and we are looking forward to a bumper summer holiday season this year. As a City, we have put measures in place to ensure that tourists have a safe and memorable holiday in Durban. To demonstrate that we continue to live up to our tagline of being Africa’s playground, we hosted the Blue Economy Week which brought together key stakeholders to drive the revitalisation of the ocean’s economy. 

We also launched the 2025 Durban International Marathon which will take place in May next year. Again, this event is crucial in positioning our City as a venue of choice for global sporting events as it attracts thousands of local and international visitors into the City. We are looking forward to rolling out the red carpet for athletes and spectators of this international event.