MOSSEL BAY NEWS - Mossel Bay municipality sent the following message from Alderman Dirk Kotze:

With an early grasping of the impact Covid-19 would have on communities, the Mossel Bay DA Mayoral Committee, together with the municipal administration, accurately anticipated the detrimental effect a national lockdown will have on businesses and livelihoods of people in our town. As a result, we proactively compiled several measures to curtail the short- and long term impact of the pandemic.

Firstly, it is very important that the community of Mossel Bay are aware that a Municipality is a ‘creature of statute’. This means that municipalities are only allowed to act within the parameters of governing legislation.

The national lockdown was initiated by President Cyril Ramaphosa in line with the State of National Disaster, as declared on 15 March 2020. This means that the disaster must be managed by the national government, through national regulations. Provinces and municipalities, within their stipulated mandate, must only act as agents in this regard. Consequently, the Mossel Bay Municipality has very limited authority in the way it fights to curb the spread of the virus.

What the Municipality has done to curtail the initial blow:

Business and Industry assistance

• Financial assistance was provided to all lessees of the Municipality;
• An amnesty was granted for paying the full-service bill for 3 months after the government’s announcement, with a 6-month interest-free repayment period.

Residential Clients

• Water restrictions were lifted, meaning that restricting devices were opened.
• All prepaid and conventional blocked electricity meters were opened.
• Indigent application deadlines were moved forward.
• The auxiliary recovery rate on overdue accounts by prepaid purchases was reduced from 55% to 30%.
• No interest will be levied on arrear accounts till payment date in June 2020 (if accounts were up to date on 16 March 2020).

The enormous challenge to deal with hunger:
As mentioned above, Covid-19 is a national disaster, and according to the Social Assistance Act, the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) is therefore the leading agency charged with social support to the poor. Furthermore, the Department of Social Development (DSD) was mandated and is fully responsible to distribute food relief to qualifying beneficiaries.

Unfortunately, this arrangement resulted in enormous frustration due to the unrealistic rate at which urgent resources were made available for distribution. Facing this challenge and the dire need for hunger relief, it was evident that people were approaching an Easter Weekend on empty stomachs.

"I want to thank the Mossel Bay DA Councillors for opening their daily efforts to fight this pandemic and opening hearts by contributing R40 000 of their April 2020 stipend towards food relief.

The Democratic Alliance (DA) Mossel Bay wishes to sincerely thank the Mossel Bay Municipality and every single local resident who contributed towards the Emergency Food Relief Project, which was initiated within mere hours after the announcement of the lockdown, to effectively respond to the desperate needs of communities.

On Wednesday, 8 April, Mossel Bay's Executive Mayor, Alderman Harry Levendal and the Executive Mayoral Committee approved the use of R500 000 from municipal funds to assist qualifying applicants in dire need of food support during the national lockdown.

Mayor Levendal also called on the Mossel Bay community for donations to ensure that even more indigent recipients’ need for sustenance are being met.

This emergency food relief project was initiated as a bridging initiative until the Department of Social Development (DSD), which was given the national mandate and ultimate responsibility for the distribution of food parcels, could put their planning and processes in place.

The Municipal employees worked endless hours to establish a computerized database and an online application facility, backed by a call centre where applicants are assisted, in the three most widely spoken official languages in the Western Cape, to apply for emergency food relief.

By Saturday morning, 11 April, during the Easter weekend, the first of the emergency food parcels were delivered to beneficiaries. A triple audit process regulated delivery - delivery staff took photos of the beneficiary and their identity documents, and an electronic geo-PIN was dropped at the delivery address, which directly linked back to the electronic database.

Eventually, during Easter Weekend, 1062 food parcels were delivered to needy families across the greater Mossel Bay Municipal area. The contents of the food parcels will be enough to provide sustenance for five people per household for a month.

The Municipal bridging project was halted on Monday, April 13, after the Department of Social Services announced that the first of their food parcels had been received in Mossel Bay and that they were ready to commence distribution.

The DA Constituency of Mossel Bay would also like to thank the Garden Route District Municipality and various other organizations, who helped us and are currently continuing with relief projects.

It is, however, unfortunate that some organisations decided to abuse the situation by attempting to gain political favour or mileage out of this disaster.

A local opposition councillor unfortunately decided to institute criminal charges against the Western Cape MEC of Education for continuing with the existing School Feeding projects at selected schools - this after protracted consultations with the relevant principles. Sadly, the decision to lay these charges was not born out of compassion for thousands of children who could be fed in a safe and responsible way, but rather to drive publicity for petty political gain.

Another group of residents decided to invite E-TV to Mossel Bay and to purposely organise and achieve negative publicity by trying to portray the Mossel Bay Municipality as neither responsive nor caring.

The DA would like to remind all organisations in Mossel Bay that the national lockdown and state of disaster is not the time to promote subjective selfish goals or to embark on an ill-informed mudslinging campaign.

We are all currently facing the same situation. We would instead like to emplore all organisations and donors to stand and work together towards the common benefit of those who need it the most.

There are several Municipal drop-off points at various supermarkets where food may still be donated. This will still be collected and distributed by the municipality to qualifying beneficiaries in all of our communities, based on the fair and set criteria prescribed by the Department of Social Development.

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