Durban — King Cetshwayo District Municipality mayor and chairperson of the South African Local Government Association (Salga) Thamsanqa Ntuli said that the local government was doing a lot of work which was not their responsibility, such as providing bursaries, organising sports and other work.
Ntuli said this on Wednesday when he was addressing councillors responsible for water infrastructure at the Salga sessions which started on Tuesday, at the Coastlands Umhlanga Hotel in Durban. The municipal officials were taken through the process of submitting accurate, reliable and clean annual financial statements.
Ntuli tabled issues that are faced by the local government.
“There are departments for sports and recreation and others for things that are now done by the local government. When people are angry about national issues mayors and councillors feel the wrath,” he said.
Some of the issues raised were councillors’ working conditions, their salaries and the targeted assassinations faced by councillors within the local government.
He said it took a long time for councillors to get a certificate from the provincial police commissioner once they had said that they were receiving death threats from people.
“The challenges facing individual councillors when you receive threats from the society that any time from now you are going to be killed, you find that you have to wait for months before a certificate is issued for you to get security,” said Ntuli.
He said that when you first become a councillor you are met with threats.
Salga needed to attend to such regulations and be the voice for councillors, Ntuli said.
Daily News