Discussions with Mayor and MM on 4th November 2009

Present: Eddie Rankwana, Robbie Dennis, Gerrie Botes (Jeffreys Bay), Thys Kruger (Aston Bay) and Joe Oosthuizen (St Francis Bay).

Robbie Dennis: The main political objective is to get the issue resolved ASAP and for that reason we must be decisive and act quickly. He affirmed his commitment to this cause.

“Possibly the KM did not attend to the problem as they should have”.

Joe Oosthuizen: Stated that the Ratepayers were angry and that they wanted to address the cause not the symptoms of the problem. The cause Ratepayers felt was poor management and for this reason Ratepayers felt that a two day workshop was needed under the direction of an experienced Mediator who could guide the process further. The types of things that Ratepayers wanted addressed or corrected were: Control of Finance; Departmental performance; the unsustainable budget that would result in a change of the rates factor; the corrupt valuations role; benchmarking in each Department; employment practices etc.

Robbie Dennis: He confirmed that we were not yet in dispute and for that reason he proposed that it was not necessary that a Mediator should be used. He proposed an internal process using a joint Task Team of Municipal Officials and two representatives from each Ratepayers Association. He proposed that he lead the Task Team and that the findings be provided to the Mayoral Executive Committee.

Joe Oosthuizen: He was opposed to this suggestion on three grounds, firstly he felt that the Mayor should not be leading the task team as he stated that the Mayor was perceived by Ratepayers as being part of the current problem. Secondly he felt that the Mayoral Executive Committee was under the control of the Mayor and not unbiased. He felt strongly that a non biased Mediator or Facilitator would be a far better approach. He stated that if a task team was being suggested he would then feel more comfortable if Eddie Rankwana headed this up. Eddie felt that protocol prohibited this. (He would gladly head up the technical task team though). Thirdly he had unfortunately been involved in a Municipal Task Team before where meetings were continually being cancelled, in five consecutive meetings the task team had been presented with five different chairpersons from the Municipality (no continuity), and no decisions were ever followed up on. This format only served to put matters on the “back burner” and did not lead to the desired results.

Robbie Dennis did not like the idea of a Facilitator as it then could be perceived as an us and them situation and that a two day workshop would not be long enough to address the problems.

Joe Oosthuizen stated that the two day workshop would be used as a starting point and the intension was that this would only be the starting point of a process that would be put in place in order to address management issues within Kouga.

Gerrie Botes gave examples of issues that were long outstanding with the KM for which he had not got feedback. He also gave an example of a very serious allegation of suppliers having to pay the Executive Committee a very sizable fee in order to be awarded a tender. He was currently uncovering evidence and would only present it once he had proof of wrongdoing.

Thys Kruger asked the Mayor to clarify areas of his proposal and felt that possibly elements of the Mayors plan could be used.

Gerrie Botes asked about the access to information during the process and the assurance was given by the Mayor that the required information would be made available.

Robbie Dennis emphasized that he had an “open door” policy and as such he was easy to contact. Joe Oosthuizen reminded the Mayor that while on the Beach Steering Committee the Mayor was unfortunately booked up for a month and could not see the committee. It was also pointed out that a similar incident had occurred when the committee had tried to obtain help from the MM.

Joe Oosthuizen stated that he would discuss the Mayor’s proposal with Ratepayers Committees and provide feedback and a proposal as to what would be acceptable.

After further minor issues were discussed the meeting was ended at about 10h35 with the understanding that Ratepayers would come back with:

Terms of Reference.
Issues that they wanted to be addressed.
Names of Team Members with specific skills that would be co-opted from the ranks of the Ratepayers across Kouga.

The Mayor would supply a list of dates that would be made available for the task team if this was agreed to. These dates were later provided by the Mayors Office as being any date from the 17th to the 20th of November starting at 9am.