SUMMARY: Pietermaritzburg’s woes continued with the municipality calling for urgent action to be taken to deal with the City’s runaway debtor’s book, which has run to more than R3,5 billion.
Former president, Jacob Zuma, made his underwhelming appearance before the Zondo Commission of Inquiry in to state capture, largely repeating what he has been saying for years – it is all a plot, there are spies afoot, there is no such thing as state capture.
Across the sea, Boris Johnson, the Brexiteer who has promised to lead Britain out of the European Union with or without a deal by the end of October, was elected to replace Theresa May as prime minister after winning the leadership of the Conservative Party.
The eThekwini Municipality finally owned up to the fact that Durban’s R170 million infrastructure projects have been wrecked by so-called “business forums” who have been extorting businesses for years. The MEC for Economic Development, Tourism and Environment Affairs, Nomusa Dube-Ncube told the legislature that the government will “deal” with these business forums – many of whom were allies of the state capture faction of the ANC.
Even closer to home, a task team set up by the ANC to investigate the ongoing shenanigans in the Msunduzi Municipality, recommended the entire municipal top brass be axed including Mayor Themba Njilo. As if to emphasise the extent of the rot, the very next day it was revealed that the KZN Hawks were investigating a case of fraud against City officials over a R45 million swimming pool tender.
The following week the Msunduzi Municipality found itself without political leadership as the ANC Provincial Executive Committee (PEC), acting on its task team’s recommendation, duly removed the mayor and the entire executive committee (Exco).
The gap was later filled when the ANC KwaZulu-Natal leadership announced former Msunduzi councillor Mzimkulu Thebola as the new mayor of the municipality. The appointment of the relatively unknown Thebola was made on the back of speculation that the problems with the region and Msunduzi ANC caucus had resulted in high profile candidates declining to take the Msunduzi mayoral position.
I decided to end the month by tackling a subject very close to my heart – the environment. In this respect, it was a bad week for Pietermaritzburg with toxic effluent being spilled in to the Duzi river, toxic fumes being discharged in to the air from the burning municipal landfill site and uncollected rubbish left lying on the streets.
For the purposes of my cartoon, however, I chose to have a go at the denialist-in-chief, US President Donald Trump…
Stidy's Eye 