The proposed relocation of the Cacadu district municipal offices from Port Elizabeth has come up again in the form of a resolution of the Cacadu district ANC Youth league at its extended regional executive committee meeting in Kirkwood on 31 March.
The demand is supported by ANC Cacadu district municipality deputy chairperson, Lungile Mxube.
The proposed relocation of the Cacadu district municipal offices from Port Elizabeth has come up again in the form of a resolution of the Cacadu district ANC Youth league at its extended regional executive committee meeting in Kirkwood on 31 March.
The demand is supported by ANC Cacadu district municipality deputy chairperson, Lungile Mxube. And while he wouldn’t commit to a time frame, in an interview with Grocott’s Mail this week he was adamant the offices would be moved from the Nelson Mandela Metro Municipality to the farming area of Kirkwood, he wasn’t clear on the time frame.
What is happening now is a waste of taxpayers’ money, he said. If Cacadu officials need to address something in Graaff Reinet they have to travel many hours – and how are they going to deliver (services properly) in that situation? asked Mxube.
He said Cacadu was also contributing to the Nelson Mandela Metro in terms of revenue – yet Cacadu was very poor. Another reason for choosing Kirkwood as the new district municipality headquarters was that it was geographically central among all the local municipalities it served. No matter which local municipality in Cacadu a person was coming from, he argued, the journey to Kirkwood is no more than two hours.
ANC Youth League Cacadu district chairperson and Makana municipality councillor, Mabhuti Matyumza, told Grocott’s Mail after the 31 March meeting that a site had been identified for the new offices. He said people from Cacadu were not benefiting from the offices being in Port Elizabeth because most of the people working there were from the Metro. He claimed the reason some officials were against the move was that they had bought houses in Port Elizabeth.
Former Makana and Cacadu councillor, Michael Whisson, agreed with Matyumza, saying only a few people from Cacadu were employed at its offices. He said the matter had been dragging on for some years and that the first proposed location for the new offices had been Grahamstown. What had prevented this move, he said, was disagreement about where in Grahamstown the offices would be.
I suggested that if we have the offices here in Grahamstown then they must be in Joza Township, but the ANC opted for the offices to be based in the CBD, said Whisson.
He said the matter was debated for several years and because no suitable CBD site could be found, it petered out.
He said Grahamstown’s not being the centre of Cacadu geographically had also taken it out of the race.
The next favoured candidate, Whisson explained, had been Jeffreys Bay.
Jeffrey’s Bay as you may know is very expensive – but it was chosen to be the headquarters of Cacadu and again it was said offices must be in the CBD there.
No agreement was reached and later Jeffrey’s Bay was also taken out of the running.
I suggested Jansenville, but no one took it seriously, said Whisson.
Meanwhile Cacadu district municipal manager, Ted Pillay, said land had to be identified on which to build the municipal offices because there were no big buildings to accommodate them.
We took the decision of moving to Kirkwood last year because Kirkwood is relatively central for all the local municipalities in the Cacadu district, said Pillay.
