A historic Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) has been signed by EThekwini Mayor, Cllr James Nxumalo and Uthukela District Municipality Mayor, Cllr Dudu Mazibuko. It allows for cooperation on service delivery between the two municipalities. The agreement is the first of its kind among KwaZulu-Natal municipalities.

Under this agreement, the municipalities commit to sharing knowledge, skills and best practices in areas of water and sanitation, local economic development, finance management, tourism, good governance as well as community participation.

Mayor Nxumalo said the signing of the MOU will encourage co-operation between the two municipalities in order to bolster service delivery which will allow them to deliver on their political commitments to the people of KwaZulu-Natal in their respective areas of jurisdiction.

“I am particularly pleased with the fact that our Water and Sanitation Unit has already started working with UThukela District Municipality on possible areas where we can share best practice in terms of water provision and preservation. We are optimistic about this agreement because we already have a completed water project that we have done at the City of Bulawayo in Zimbabwe where we also have a Sister City relationship. I am confident that we will start reaping the fruits of this agreement before the end of our term in 2016,” he said.

Nxumalo added that eThekwini Municipality is committed to monitor the progress of work that will be done as part of this cooperation in order to ensure that this agreement does not only end on paper but the people of UThukela and eThekwini do get the benefits thereof.

Cllr Mazibuko said they are very excited about this agreement and they are looking forward to working with eThekwini for the benefit of their communities.

“When we came in as a new administration we inherited a Municipality that was run down by our predecessors and the situation was so bad that at one stage we struggled to find money to pay our workers. Another issue that we faced was the lack of maintenance of our infrastructure hence we are facing challenges with water service.”

“We are pleased that we are signing this agreement with eThekwini because we are witnesses to the fact that eThekwini is the best run municipality in the country. What is also exciting about this is that we are the first municipalities to sign this kind of agreement,” she said.

Representatives of the South African Local Government Association SALGA and the KZN Department of Cooperative Governance and Cooperation (COGTA), Cllr Nigel Gumede and Mr Pienaar shared the same sentiments that partnerships of this nature should be encouraged in order to get Municipalities to work together to improve the pace of delivery of services to the people.

Gumede said “We are very excited about this agreement as SALGA because it shows that we are on the right track to achieving our objectives as Municipalities, like the 2014 target of clean audits in all KwaZulu-Natal Municipalities.”

As part of the carousals on the day, Municipal Managers from both Municipalities also appended their signatures as witnesses to the Memorandum of Understanding that will serve as pledges that bind the two municipalities for the implementation.