A fruitful meeting took place at the Cleary Park Shopping Complex on Monday, 7 May between the Executive Mayor, Cllr Zanoxolo Wayile, and Northern Areas business people to improve working relations going forward.

The session was to forge closer working relations and also to deal with issues that affect businesses in the area.

They have raised a number of challenges, such as non-payment of suppliers by the Municipality, perceived exclusion from participating in the Municipality’s supply chain processes and challenges around municipal service charges.

Mayor Wayile said although the session was heated at times, he understood the frustration and was there to provide leadership.

“Whilst all these concerns are valid, business also need to introspect, make sure that they organize themselves and position themselves favourably to benefit from the value chain accruing from government’s economic development initiatives. I’m committed to unlocking the bottle necks being identified here, I have committed a team, to be led by the Acting Municipal Manager and senior municipal officials to come and deal with all the identified challenges. Again, the message is clear, this Municipality will not suffer reputational damage because of non-performance, I’m committed to turning the situation around so that we promote good relations with our stakeholders and deliver on our mandate of building sustainable communities,” said Mayor Wayile.

The interactive sessions was also extended to Councillors of the Northern Areas, who met with Mayor Wayile as part of his programme to revitalize the Mayoral offices in Cleary Park and Uitenhage.

“I’m convinced that we need to work differently so we can effect positive change in the lives of our people.”

The Councillors from the Northern Areas have raised a number of concerns ranging from infrastructure challenges, ATTP backlogs, red tape, indifferent attitudes from staff and human settlements issues to name but a few.

“I will convene a planning session to develop a Northern Areas service delivery turn-around strategy and I have tasked Cllr Lawrence Troon to lead the process politically. I also call on all Councillors to come to the party and play their role in driving development and societal cohesion,” said Mayor Wayile. – Luncedo Njezula

Mayor Wayile met with Northern Areas businesspeople to build closer working relations and also to discuss issues affecting them.