Well, at last our city is to be a metropolitan. This is long overdue and one wonders what has held up the declaration of this status for so long.. One wonders, too, what the purpose was of describing our city as an “aspirant metro” when it had to carry this appellation for just about eight years during which time the economic growth of the city reached its apogee but failed to impress the Municipal Demarcation Board whose responsibility it is to rule on these matters. Now, when the only visible change in circumstance was a decline of the district municipality into virtual dysfunctionality, the city is freed from simply having to aspire. Perhaps it was the unhealthy ‘competition’ between the local and district municipalities that brought about the prevarication, for there was a time when each of Msunduzi and Umgungundlovu feared that the other might become the nucleus of a new metro council. Now the district has other, more pressing, priorities which will command all the considerable skills that Yusuf Bhamjee is able to muster. At the Chamber, we believe in his ability to put things right and have been encouraged already by constructive dialogue with him.

In 2003, the PCB made a submission to the Minister of Provincial and Local Government urging that the metropolitan should be established prior to the municipal elections. We took a line of least resistance in proposing that the Umgungundlovu boundaries should be the limits of the metro, but that a new metro council should be established. Having examined very closely the Demarcation Board’s criteria for metro status, we recognize now that there are too many parts of the district municipality that are not part of the conurbation and, therefore, do not fit in. On the other hand, however, the reports that the present Msunduzi municipality will constitute the metro give considerable cause for concern. If this is to be the case – the PCB expected there to be a period of consultation about boundaries – the Board has failed to apply its own criteria in terms of which Hilton, certainly, and Howick, probably, should be part of the new municipality. I cannot imagine any reasonable submission making any other proposal, for a metropolitan area is one in which there is an integrated economy without parts of it being excluded and allocated elsewhere.

We are told that the benefit for the city is a much larger share of national funding. This will make life a good deal easier for our struggling municipality in which its population trebled at least without any significant increase in the rates base. Furthermore, while Msunduzi businesses contributed over 70% of the District’s levy income until the levy was scrapped, nothing like that amount came back to the city for its development. In the established metros, by contrast, all the levy income was available. To add to Msunduzi’s financial difficulties, it has had to bear the costs of both the airport and the landfill site which should have been carried by the District.

At the PCB, we believe that metro status considerably enhances the city’s potential. It is an elevation to a higher level of functionality with commensurate benefits for political leaders, which should please them no end. We hope that the media reports about the boundaries are premature and that logic will prevail before the matter is settled. We hope that our city and its people will rise to the occasion, for being a metropolitan provincial capital carries expectations of substantial improvement.

Andrew Layman - PCB CEO

This article appeared in the Public Eye on the 29 May 2008