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The DA-led coalition in Nelson Mandela Bay remains united and focused on delivering services to the people of the city.

Coalition governments are the future of South Africa and while they can be difficult they are necessary.

The coalition government in NMB has demonstrated its resilience time and time again and always put the people first.

Working together with our coalition partners, and other parties in council, we have put the people first and passed two consecutive pro-poor budgets.

A positive reflection of our financial position is the recent Moody’s credit upgrade to Aa1 as well as the R179 million reward from National Treasury for spending 100% of our USDG funding.

Turning around the chaotic state of the municipality's finances in 2016 has been a priority and we are proud of the progress we have made.

We have tarred kilometres of gravel roads giving the poorest areas access to the rest of the City.

Some of the highlights from the budget are:

• R2.2 billion for the provision of a fixed amount of free basic services to indigent households;
• R138.5 million on resurfacing and rehabilitation of roads;
• R167.9 million on electrification of informal households;
• R72.7 million on public lighting;
• R49 million on upgrades or development of public spaces; and
• R45 million for the acquisition of land for housing development

Since the DA-led coalition took over, the successes under the leadership of Executive Mayor Trollip speak for themselves.

We have eradicated 9046 bucket toilets of 16 317 we inherited, provided 2188 RDP houses and uncovered R615 million worth of corruption and irregularities.

The Thusong Centre in Motherwell was completed and opened within a year after R12 million was spent.

A total of 5439 EPWP jobs were created and 646 streetlights installed in a number of areas.

The Shotspotter technology installed in Helenvale also proved to be a great success. Within 90 days of its installation, gunshots were reduced by 90%.

IPTS busses are on the road and we’ve also built the highly secured Clearly Park Bus Depot.

We are confident that when disagreements emerge among coalition partners we can resolve them by putting the people at the centre of our discussions.

We are making progress in Nelson Mandela Bay.

Issued by DA