Mayor’s Forward

The 2020/21 financial year was extremely challenging for Nkandla Municipality, compounded by the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on lives and livelihoods as well as the looting of shops which severely affected our economy. Over the past five years, we have made great strides in improving the material conditions of our people. We also acknowledge that a lot still needs to be done to address the triple challenge of poverty, unemployment and inequality that is still plaguing our communities. We commit ourselves to continue to work with all social partners to eradicate these challenges. After the lockdown due to covid 19 and the looting of shops, our local economy got affected in such a way that shops which are a source of income for most families were closed due to looting.

But commend the leadership of Nkandla for safeguarding our shops and town to make sure that vandalism got limited and commend the relief measures taken by the Government and our Municipality. Nkandla Municipality has developed an Economic Recovery Plan to respond to the COVID-19 economic downturn and looting.

This economic recovery plan has the following ten pillars:

1. Safeguarding jobs
2. Monitoring the Municipal income and health of the economy
3. Facilitating our share of national government support
4. Accelerating radical socio-economic transformation
5. Supporting the informal economy and SMMEs
6. Accelerating construction, infrastructure, and investment projects
7. Operationalizing the Socio-Economic Fund
8. Rates relief plan and fee exemption to landlords
9. Intervention by Private sector, National and Provincial government.
10. Attraction of investors

We are pleased to report that these interventions yielded positive results. We have managed to achieve a revenue collection rate of over 97%. Through catalytic projects, we managed to create 220 jobs in 2020 and 143 jobs in 2021 through EPWP and CWP. The provision of rates relief to businesses that can no longer operate due to the damage to their property by using Section 78 of the Municipal Property Act or Section 14 of the Rates Policy. Providing a rental holiday to businesses that are using municipal buildings until they are repaired or rebuilt. We wish to convey our gratitude to the business sector for taking a bold decision to retain their investments in the Nkandla despite the unimaginable losses they suffered. The unrest further exposed high-level of poverty, inequality and unemployment that exists in the country. People have sent a strong message to us that now is the time to radically transform our economy. the civil unrest has brought us many challenges, it has also presented us with opportunities of bringing the majority of our people into the mainstream economy.