EThekwini City Manager Sibusiso Sithole has set up a task team to develop area-based management plans to deal with inner city and secondary central business district management, for an improved inner city environment.

This announcement was recently made by Sithole during a full day workshop attended by the City’s top management.

During the workshop, which discussed ways of improving area-based management in the City, Sithole formally established the task team and urged its members to speedily move from conceptualisation to detailed implementation of plans that will make a meaningful difference in the inner city.

“The task team must map where we should start, targeting areas that are our harshest realities in the City,” he said.

City departments that make up the task team are Metro Police, Durban Solid Waste, Safer Cities, Finance, Informal Trade, Planning, Water, Electricity, Engineering, Transport, Parks, Legal, Fire, Health, Environmental Health, Housing and Communication.

“We need to move away from silo-based resource planning by focusing on the main objective and building a core team to deliver on the objective,” he urged.

In addressing the priority areas, Sithole directed the task team to thoroughly interrogate issues negatively impacting the inner city and secondary central business districts, develop an action-based and results-oriented plan and deliberate on the institutional arrangements that will enable the success of this intervention.

The prioritisation will be based on each area’s needs.

High-level priorities cited by Sithole include cleaning, security, street trading and social challenges.