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Following pressure from the DA, the speaker of council Thabani Nyawose, reversed his decision not to let opposition parties to debate the mayor's state of the city address.

While the mayor fails to convey a comprehensive picture of the city's current status, the DA in eThekwini disputes the presentation and urges Kaunda to quit deceiving the public and face the reality.

Water losses in the city have surpassed 52%. According to the Auditor General's report for 2021/2022, the city acquired 401 527 498 kilolitres of water but only sold 175 787 719 kilolitres, with the remainder lost. The mayor points to the reprioritized R600 million budget for restoring water and sanitation services as the impetus for change. However, the track record of both Kaunda and the ANC implies that the monies will most certainly be misused.

Combating crime and creating jobs are two of the five priority areas selected. There are no details on how this will be accomplished in a city where Durban Central police station ranked first among the top 30 police stations in the country for the 17 most common community offences, which increased by 8.2% from 1,816 in July to September 2020/21 to 1,965 in July to September 2021/22.

Reforms in supply chain management were also a boasting point, despite the Auditor General lambasting the city for poor consequence management and not implementing recommendations to curb the R1.5 billion irregular expenditure for 2021–2022.

A new catchphrase has been born "labour intensive approach," with no clear understanding of what this entails. Let us not forget that the April floods were compounded by inadequate infrastructure maintenance, resulting in at least R17 billion in damage and over 300 deaths. A situation that the mayor has no concrete plan to address.

During the COVID-19 period, the city claims to have attracted direct investment worth R4 billion. The reality is that investors in the city are on the brink of disinvesting. The Durban Business Confidence Index currently sits lower than 50, implying a lack of confidence in the local economy.

Over 8000 flood-displaced families were relocated to mass care facilities that are neither family-friendly nor safe. Inspections of several places indicate that the mayor's assertion that these facilities are habitable and dignified cannot be supported.

The city today has 600 informal settlements that house approximately 700,000 people, accounting for around 20% of the municipality's population. All the while, almost R100 million in grant funding to remove informal settlements was revoked by national treasury due to underspending.

19 of the 23 beaches in the city remain open, and while the mayor boasts about this, he fails to mention that some beaches were open over the festive season despite having abnormally high E. coli levels.

The city is still on the verge of collapse, and the ANC is exclusively responsible for its ongoing mismanagement of funds and support of the inefficient and poor leadership of Mayor Mxolisi Kaunda.

Issued by Councillor Thabani Mthethwa - DA eThekwini Caucus Leader