Lacking Control

The Witness
Lacking control 14 Nov 2008
Cllr GLENN MCARTHUR COMPLAINTS about the lack of municipal service delivery pour in from political parties and the public. It has been said that the city is falling apart.No one has suggested that there has been no spending on new projects, that some areas were better served in the past or that other areas are being favoured now. The basic problem is the lack of management control. What is being questioned is how successfully work is being monitored in the new and old areas of the city.Instead of fobbing off or ignoring the public’s concerns, council management should acknowledge the role the public plays as their eyes and ears, drawing attention to areas in need of attention. A complaints hotline is useless unless it is properly monitored, with correspondence answered, reference numbers issued and implementation undertaken within reasonable time frames. If this does not happen, then there is a problem with basic management in our city.At the moment council resolutions seem to disappear off the radar and report-back structures are inadequate. Officials are not held accountable for implementation. The municipal manager seems to be uninformed about issues that have been outstanding for a period of more than six months and there does not seem to be a follow-up mechanism; nor does there seem to be any will, either managerial or political, to implement such a mechanism. Attendance at meetings and dealing with issues seem to be at the whim of the officials concerned, resulting in a lack of accountability and the build-up of backlogs, which are increasingly becoming unmanageable. Anyone can issue instructions. Good management, however, re-volves around monitoring those instructions and ensuring that those who are paid to do the work are held accountable. This is clearly lacking within the Msunduzi Municipality.
Comments:

Posted by neville jarman on 17 Nov 2008
Useless city managersLike Durban,Pietermaritzburg looks like one big garbage dump. Even someone with very little management skills could do better than Sutcliffe and Haswell are doing (or not doing, in this case). Perhaps they should be sent to Cape Town to spend a week with Helen Zille to see how their city mayor (a world mayoral winner) keeps things moving, clean and well organised. Cape Town is a world class city thanks to Zille and her unknown city manager. In Pmb and Durban we know who our managers are because they are infamously useless. They spend their time re-naming streets instead of focussing on service delivery. What credentials does Haswell have anyway to run a city? He was my geography lecturer at 'varsity. But i suppose all he needs - like Sutcliffe - is to carry an ANC membership card to qualify.

Posted by Deon Joubert on 15 Nov 2008
Municipal Manager IncompetentI do not believe that the Municipal Manager and his management team is uninformed about complaints from ratepayers. They just choose to ignore (and especially when complaints come from whites)the complaints (and it appears when complaints come from whites the council has been instructed to ignore such complaints)as they are totally incompetent to run this city. I am still waiting for replies to my letters,faxes, emails to Rob Haswell personally regarding the appalling situation in Lynnfield Park with the council approving an illegal taxi rank and vendors (no consultation with ratepayers)(not residents from Lynnfield Park)next to our houses. We have taxi operators who urinate and defecate in full view of the residents, wash their cars and leave heaps of rubbish and discarded food in the "rank" and surrounding areas. We are however paying Rob Haswells R1 million rand salary and this is the respect he shows ratepayers. Tell the public, Mr Haswell- why have you refused to address our complaints or refuse to reply to our letters since 2006? Is it a council decision based on race or are you scared of the taxi operators or maybe you can't read?