Durban - EThekwini Municipality is concerned about the influx of people to the city looking for economic opportunities and wants to partner with neighbouring municipalities in the province to boost the job prospects in those areas.
EThekwini mayor Mxolisi Kaunda said the city was looking to “share” skills and investment opportunities in order to encourage people to stay in those areas instead of flocking to Durban, the economic hub of the province, to look for work.
“We cannot be looking to shine alone as that has unintended consequences,” said Kaunda recently.
The municipality, together with the Durban Chamber of Commerce and Industry, held a media briefing last week to give an update on a variety of challenges in the city and what had been done to address them.
The challenges include the damaged infrastructure such as wastewater works, that has led to the contamination of beaches, negatively affecting the city’s tourism industry.
Kaunda said while the beaches were closed on account of poor water quality, the situation had improved, with some of the beaches re-opening.
He said millions of rand were still needed to fund the recovery process. The city has received about R184 million for these efforts from the government, but needs about R164m to fix some of its water pumps and R300m to fix some of its water works.
Speaking on the future, Kaunda said Durban could not survive being the only source of economic activity for the millions of people across the province.
He said the influx of people had put pressure on the city’s infrastructure and ability to provide services and had largely been blamed for the exponential growth of informal settlements.
At the last count, the number of settlements in eThekwini was at a staggering 500.
“I have instructed the city manager to work with the district (municipalities) around the metro to improve the economic activity in those areas,” said Kaunda.
“Since we are the only metro in the province, it’s a given that people will come in numbers to look for job opportunities and economic opportunities.
“But what becomes important is that the provincial government needs to work together with us to ensure that there is sustainable development in all areas so that people will be located where they are from.”
He said eThekwini Municipality should offer skills sharing with other cities in the province as part of intergovernmental relations.
“We do not want to compete with other districts, we want to complement them as the only metro, to work together with them so they can reinforce their work to attract more investments and tourism on their side,” said Kaunda. He added that redirecting some of the opportunities to other municipalities could reduce the burden eThekwini was facing.