Warwick Bruce Chapman

In March 2010, a year and a half ago, Cllr Tex Collins and I were assured that the last major technical hurdle in the completion of the new Revenue Management System was the data migration from the old Coins system to the new LOGOsoft RMS system. We were at the time advised that this process was almost complete, and they indeed demonstrated by pulling my Metro Bill. We were assured that the next challenges related only to testing, training and rollout preparation.

Last week, ahead of this council meeting, I emailed, phoned and SMSed the department head responsible for this project and asked him to make time available for me to get an update on the status of the project. I have received no reply. This is a repeat of my experience in 2010 as I attempted to prepare for the last time RMS/COINS appeared on the agenda. Again, it would appear that a municipal official is actively avoiding speaking to a councillor about RMS.

We are now being asked, for the first time as long as I have been a councillor, to approve an amount for the maintenance of COINS, which until now I believed was maintained in-house. This amount is significant, around 15% of last tranche of R77m we were forced to approve for the completion of RMS, and would not be necessary had we completed our RMS project on budget and on schedule.

In October 2010, I tabled a Notice of Motion[1], which required that “a monthly report be tabled at each Council meeting henceforth on progress towards the completion of the development and implementation of the system.”

The Motion was passed unanimously but no such reports have appeared on the agenda of any council meeting since then. As such I will write to the Speaker after this meeting requiring that this matter be comprehensively reported on at the next council meeting failing which the matter will be escalated to the MEC: COGTA.

Given the critical nature of the system to the proper functioning of the municipality’s financial system, we are forced to support this vote, but we do it under protest. I shall motivate to my colleagues that we setup a task team to urgently investigate the specific details pertaining to the RMS project and its progress. It is time now, after nearly 8 years and almost R500m that we complete and implement this project and start realising a return on investment for our ratepayers.

[1] 20101014-motion-rms

NOTE: This statement is here because I played a role in creating it while eThekwini Campaign Manager in the 2011 Local Government Elections.

Holiday seasons offer our city a prime opportunity to put its best foot forward and show visitors what we have to offer and in so doing, encourage them to keep coming back. The unsightly construction work taking place on the prime promenade, the Golden Mile, a week before the Easter break does exactly the opposite. After a walkabout yesterday to inspect the readiness of the beachfront for the holidays, I was met by incomplete construction work, untrimmed vegetation and dying palm trees and still empty restaurants built before the World Cup. Our beachfront is sorely in need of the proper management and attention to detail which can make it the best holiday location in the country.

The Golden Mile is eThekwini’s best asset for marketing the City. Our sandy beaches, warm ocean temperatures and tropical climate mean that we have the perfect ingredients for a year-round and world-class tourism product. What we don’t have right now is the commitment and co-ordination by the city council to ensure that we leverage these ingredients into a recipe for real success. A successfully managed, safe and polished beachfront will attract increasing numbers of tourists to Durban every year, increasing economic growth and job creation.

The DA-run city of Cape Town enjoys a large market share of the local and international tourist trade precisely because it has developed itself as a tourist centered city committed to offering all visitors a safe, enjoyable and memorable stay. Cape Town has recognized that tourism holds massive potential for employment opportunities and economic development and attracts large amounts of foreign and local revenue into the city helping to stimulate the local economy.

Under a DA led administration we will ensure that maintenance and upgrading of our key tourist assets is regular and planned outside of key holiday periods. Our tourism assets across the city will all be included in a detailed asset register and will be set down for scheduled inspection on a regular basis. This will ensure that any construction will cause the minimum disruption to both tourists and locals alike. The development of sustainable ‘new’ tourism initiatives in other parts of the City will be prioritised. Township, rural and adventure tourism potential in eThekwini presents major growth and job opportunities but require professional development support and ongoing management of the greater tourism environment by the City.

The DA-run city of Cape Town has shown that a focused and organized commitment to developing tourism assets yields big dividends as more visitors flock to the city. There is no reason why we cannot do the same here in eThekwini. I will commit our DA administration to delivering on the potential which our beautiful city offers and place us at the apex of tourism destinations where we rightfully belong.

NOTE: This statement is here because I played a role in creating it while eThekwini Campaign Manager in the 2011 Local Government Elections.

Statement by
Cllr Ronnie Veeran
DA eThekwini Mayoral Candidate

08 April 2011
Release: immediate

It has been revealed that only one female officer, who is not a driver, was available to cover the merged Pinetown and Queenburgh policing areas on the night of 5 April 2011. Obviously no police station can operate under these conditions. Today the DA has learnt that of the 2200 posts in the Metro Police, 1144 are currently vacant (48%). If any sector of the public service is not properly staffed, it cannot deliver the service expected of it.

The DA believes that part of the problem is born of the consolidation of the Pinetown Metropolitan Police station with that of Queensburgh which, despite claims to the contrary, has had the effect of reducing the resources available to the police, rather than increasing then.

The question now is what must happen if the situation is to be turned around and the various offices be capacitated to deliver? The DA believes it has the solution based on best practice in Cape Town, where the DA-led administration has turned the Cape Town Metro police into a model of excellence.

When the DA took the City of Cape Town over from the ANC in 2006, there was already a metro police service. It was dysfunctional and had been crippled by cadre deployment. The number of officers had been reduced by 800 members. One out of every four posts in the metro police service in Cape Town was vacant. There were severe shortages of equipment and specialised skills. The metro police had a reputation for corruption, inefficiency and ill-discipline.

In the DA’s first 100 days in office, emergency funds were utilised to fill critical posts in the metro police. Extra money was allocated for police equipment. In the DA’s first financial year, the Metro Police received a bigger capital budget than it had had for the entire five years before that.

Cape Town now has a metro police engaged in more real police work than any other metro police in the country. They don’t just enforce by-laws. They go after the criminals who terrorise our communities. And they catch them.

Since the DA took over Cape Town, crime in the city centre has been cut by 90%. Cape Town is the safest city in the country. Last year, there were 955 arrests for drug-related crime, compared to just 180 arrests five years previously. The expansion of the metro police, coupled with a massive investment in social infrastructure like parks, libraries and youth centres, has cut down the murder rate in Khayelitsha by 33%.

Given the chance, the DA can bring this delivery record to eThekwini. It is quite clear from the situation in Pinetown and Queensburgh that this kind of attention to detail and turn-around strategy is needed if the crime rate is to be reduced and the police fully capacitated. The DA has the solution, it is based on its delivery record and, if given the chance in eThekwini, it is a service we can deliver to all of the residents.

Media Enquiries:

Cllr Ronnie Veeran
DA eThekwini Mayoral Candidate
082 371 7698

Michael Beaumont
Provincial Director
083 776 2760

A TNS research survey released this past week has found that the level of dissatisfaction with service delivery in eThekwini is the highest of the 5 major metros in South Africa. Only Nelson Mandela Metro, also run by the ANC, recorded a worse score than eThekwini.

In eThekwini, 57% of respondents were dissatisfied with the level of service delivery, nearly 20% higher than the same figure for the DA-run City of Cape Town. Cape Town scored the highest of all metros with 57% satisfied with the level of delivery and only 39% dissatisfied, the lowest dissatisfaction level of all metros by nearly 10%.

The time has come for voters to make their choices on the basis of the issues which really affect their quality of life. Unemployment is lowest in the DA-run Western Cape, service delivery is the best in DA-run muncipalities. The Western Cape Provincial Government got the first clean sweep of audits for a province since 1994. Where public funds are spent properly, to the benefit of the public good, it is hardly surprising that the public benefits.

I’ve come up with more than 10 reasons and will probably keep adding reasons as they come. Please spread this far and wide.

1. The DA delivers twice as many houses in the City of Cape Town than the ANC were able to when they ran the City. Across all DA-run local governments and in the Western Cape the DA delivers more, better quality houses than any other party.

2. The Gauteng Planning Commission’s Quality of Life Survey ranks the DA-run Midvaal Municipality as the province’s top municipality for quality of life. This year Midvaal’s achieved its 8th unqualified audit report in a row. Clean, effective local government.

3. The DA understands what the word “accountability” really means. The DA fires corrupt politicians and government officials instead of moving them somewhere else.

4. While unemployment increased by 1% in all other provinces in the aftermath of the recession, it decreased by 1% in the Western Cape, driven by Cape Town’s healthy economic growth. More than 50000 people move to the Western Cape every year and unemployment is still dropping. Better Government, more jobs!

5. The Democratic Alliance allocates significant resources every year to invest in a year long development programme for inspiring young leaders – the Young Leaders Programme develops tomorrow’s great leaders today.

6. The DA-run Western Cape Government became the first provincial government since 1994 to be given a clean audit by the Auditor General of South Africa – and it achieved this after only one year in office.

7. The DA-run City of Cape Town reduced crime in the CBD by 90% and the Violence Prevention through Urban Upgrading programme reduced crime in Khayelitsha by 24%.

8. The Cooperative Governance Department’s 2010 Universal Household Access to Basic Services survey showed that nine in ten residents of the DA-run Cape Town have “universal access” to basic services – a higher proportion than any other metro in the country. On each of the individual service delivery metrics, the DA’s performance stands head and shoulders over that of the ANC-run metros.

9. The DA is the most multi-racial party in South Africa and has a proud history of fighting for liberty through the Apartheid years and in the new South Africa.

10. The DA tables significantly more parliamentary, provincial and council questions than the rest of the opposition parties put together, exposing more dodgy dealings, wasted expenditure and mismanagement than any other party. The DA tables more reports, policy proposals and discussion documents than any other party. DA politicians do the job the public pay them to do!

(Bonus reasons)

11. Helen Zille, now Premier of the Western Cape, won World Mayor of the Year in 2008 for her efforts in leading the turnaround of the City of Cape Town in only 2 years. Helen Zille is a courageous and principled woman who has been fighting for liberty from her younger days as the journalist who uncovered the murder of Steve Biko to today’s tough leadership during a difficult political climate.

12. BBBEE deals in the City of Cape Town have increased dramatically since the DA took over the municipality. DA-run municipalities grant tenders using an open-to-the-public tendering system which applies BBBEE legislation as it was intended – to empower a broad base of black entrepreneurs.

13. The DA is a party that delivers for all and prioritises growth and job creation. The DA is more effective in government because DA-run municipalities focus resources government’s core functions: basic service delivery, revenue collection, bulk infrastructure development, local economic development.