eThekwini Municipality, Durban South Africa

Contact office:

Information Services Department
eThekwini Municipality
P O Box 828
Durban, 4000
Connect to website at URL http://www.durban.gov.za
Contact Person-DR.M.O.Suttcliffe (City Manager)

South Africa showing eThekwini (within KwaZulu-Natal province)

Source of information:

• Ethekwini Municipality Integrated Development Plan 2003-2007 (2003). Available from World Wide Web at http://www.durban.gov.za/council/transformation/download.htm [Accessed 1 April 2005]
•  eThekwini Municipality Revised Integrated Development Plan 2003-2007 (2004). Unpublished report by Corporate Policy Unit (CPU), eThekwini Municipality, Durban, South Africa, June.
•  Interviews with local research teams

Introduction:

eThekwini is a municipal area in the extreme eastern side of South Africa facing the Indian ocean. Since the establishment of townships in the early 1950s the street addresses have been haphazardly coming up as the population grows . It has been seen that the ethnic and linguistic divisions do exist amongst the inhabitants of the area ( see table 1& 2). It is also visible through records and the age wise segregation of data (see table 3) that the emerging young aspirants are also increasing and looking forward to a rejuvenation of high standards of service delivery. However the unaccounted and unplanned spread of people’s habitation since 1950s has led to a crisis of service delivery in at least three ways;

The main spoken language is Zulu while the second most spoken and used language  is English. eThekwani  has brought together these two segregated linguistic groups for service delivery improvements.

coastal ports under threats

Focus of reforms:

The need to reengineer governance at the municipal level and help the reach of services to people within a particular area. It however goes beyond this by creating a Municipal Information Society or MIS which transforms internal structures and functioning of a Municipality through an  innovative use of ICT and rationalizes relationships between citizens and business organizations.

Through eThekwini local governments are able to utilise Internet technology for improving service delivery to people in terms of :

Sustainability of reforms

Sustainability of reforms is embedded into the process which the reforms strategy has adopted. It would be simpler for an outsider to understand the system if it is discussed in the following steps;

• Reforms begin on the presumption that the numbering of houses and street addresses play an integral role in service delivery.
• A single standard of a number, street name and suburb has been designed on the website which would be placed against the old address to avoid any confusion.
• A new form of numbering houses which would conform to types of service delivery such as delivery of welfare benefits, water, electricity, roads, licenses for small traders, development planning and sanitation.
• Municipality has introduced the physical address numbering system based on ERF numbers to the prevailing street number and street name system as a standard for providing services.
• A survey has been made to identify around 90,000/- households which would be affected by this change and measures have been taken to allay the problems.
• A regular maintenance and check of implementation has been assured and is being undertaken. Random, frequent verification exercises are being conducted to ensure accuracy and visual permanence of street number plates and street name signage.

Replication

The replication has been made easy due to clearly described stages in the process of implementation. These stages are ;

• consultation and facilitation with ward councillors and city officials.
• Councillors along with community workers and officials ensure the right demarcation of street address through travel across the affected areas.
• Allocation of sequential ERF/Lot numbers to be used as municipal addresses.
• Vacant areas would also be highlighted in respect of development forecasts in urban expansion but historic sites would be null.
• A computerized address index would show both the old as well as the new address
• To make the system explainable and acceptable all forms of technology would be put in use such as cell phone messages, internet information, stakeholders notification through postal systems,poster maps and circulation of CDs.

Municipal signboard

Challenges faced by the eThekwini Municipality -

 Any reform in rationalizing addresses across the dwellers in the municipal area has disturbed those poor people living in shacks. It has been difficult to address their problems as they have never been counted and accounted for in service delivery systems due to their extreme poverty and insulated existence in the city.

An organization called the Abahlali base Mjondolo or the shack dwellers movement has been questioning the reform policies of the government and it would be interesting for the researcher to look into many facets of relationship that the government shares with this pro-poor group to make implementation smooth and least traumatic to the poor.

Lessons learnt

A very important lesson that need to be understood for bringing in urban and municipality reforms is the need to streamline urban addresses through the ERF system. Indian cities have expanded gradually over a 5000 year old rural India and thus have some of the most irrational street identification systems. The result is a weak or corrupt system of service delivery as a result of which the really poor and needy urban dwellers fail to get the benefit of any reform.