Issued by: African National Congress
INAUGURAL SPEECH OF THE DURBAN METROPOLITAN MAYOR, MR OBED MLABA
23RD JULY 1996.
Fellow Councillors, Members of the Diplomatic Corps, Members of the Journalistic Fraternity, Members of Parliament, Chief Executive Officer and Officials of the Council, Ladies and Gentlemen.
I accept my appointment as mayor of Metropolitan Durban. I accept it with great humility. I promise that the trust you have shown in me will not be in vain.
The Master of Ceremony,
June 26 may resound in a distance. But each passing day reveals its significance. As the people of KwaZulu Natal snaked to the polling stations that day, patiently waiting to decide their destiny, they left behind an indelible message. With one voice they shouted peace, democracy and development. Like a pure note of a bugle that voice will rise and grow and multiply. It will rise and grow and multiply precisely because it is the voice of the people; a voice of reason and the only voice for survival.
Sikulwele sonke ukuthula nokuthelelana amanzi. Kodwa ngingekhohlwe ukubonga nokuncoma amagalelo abaholi abathize ngeqhaza abalibambile ekuzuzeni uxolo. UBhejane phuma esiqiwini selokhu aba ubhaqa olusikhanyisele sonke endleleni eya ekuthuleni, ekubuyisaneni nasentuthukweni. Bayede! Hlangalezwe! Ngingemkhohlwe uMongameli wezwe uNelson Rholihlahla Mandela futhi abuye abe uMongameli weANC. Sibonga ukubambisana kwakhe noMongameli weIFP uMntwana wakaPhindangene, iNkosi Mangosuthu Buthelezi. Sithi kuNyanda yephahla noMsholozi qhubekani nemisebenzi yenu emihle yokuthula noxolo. Ngisukwa ugqozi uma ngicabanga ngemisebenzi yobaba uArchie Gumede emzabalazweni woxolo nokuthula.
We have gathered here at a time when our boys and girls are hoisting our national flag at the Centennial Olympic Games in Atlanta.
Yesterday on behalf of the Durban Metropolitan Council I congratulated one of our finest daughters who hails from Amanzimtoti, Penny Heyns, for the feat she has performed - breaking the world record in the heats and achieving the gold medal in the finals. She has put the Durban Metro into the map of the world.
This is a great challenge to all the residents of the Durban Metro. It is a great challenge especially to the Durban Metro Councillors who must lead our people in the titanic battle against poverty, joblessness, crime, diseases and ignorance. Her feat is a clarion call to all of us to achieve excellence in everything we do.
The Master of Ceremony,
In the last few weeks I have realised the formidable task the Durban Metropolitan Council is facing. We are inheriting a divided society.
On the one hand we are inheriting abject poverty, squalor, shacks, lack of clean running water, dark nights infested with criminals, schools that are lacking everything necessary for teaching. On the other hand we are inheriting affluence, the first world. Unfortunately, the divide between poverty and affluence continues to be the colour and the colour alone. If we are not careful, the yawning donga which forms the gulf between poverty and affluence may become our common grave. There can be no islands of affluence in the sea of poverty. Never and never again shall it be that the colour of a person will decide poverty or affluence for the resident of the new democratic Durban Metro. A Better Life: Let us Make it Happen Where We live!
We are embarking on a virgin path. Nobody has traversed the path of a democratic Durban Metropolitan. We are the pathfinders. Our task is to transform the Durban Metro into a truely democratic, non-racial and non-sexist unity.
In order to achieve that objective, the character, content and the form of the Durban Metro Council must itself undergo a fundamental democratic transformation.
We cannot simply lay our hands on structures that were designed as instruments of divisions and hope to use such structures to unify our people without first transforming them. We must develop a new culture, mission, vision, content and essence of all our structures.
June 26 marked the first bold step forward in this direction. Let us consolidate on that achievement.
The Durban Metro Council must ensure that councillors do not become a transmission belt of problems to and from the people. Their most important task is to solve the problems of the people. But we must ensure that we do not solve the problems of the people without the people being part of those solutions.
There ought, there must and there will be a difference in the lives of our ordinary people. Peace beckons the Durban Metro. Without peace all our dreams will become nightmares. We must use the Durban Metro as springboards for peace.
The Durban Metro Council will have to work out a comprehensive strategy to ensure that the Durban Metro becomes the nucleus of peace in KwaZulu Natal. For that strategy to succeed, we must tackle the problem of poverty which has become a breeding ground for political violence and crime.
The question of creating job opportunities becomes central in our endeavour to create conditions for peace and the elimination of crime. In this regard one of the first tasks of our Council will be to map out a strategy for creating a conducive climate for massive investment which will create job opportunities and eliminate poverty and therefore crime itself.
These things are intertwined and interwoven. There can be no lasting peace in the midst of poverty and there can be no safety and security in the midst of joblessness.
Dear Colleagues,
I see the work of the mayor of the new Durban Metro as not only confined to golden chains and mayoral robes. It is not even confined to ceremonial opening of completed projects nor to occasional kissing of kids.
The Mayor must ensure that the kids he or she kisses have something in their stomachs, are clothed, have shelter on their heads, are not abused, go to a decent school and have an access to a health facility.
In short, the new Durban Metro needs a working mayor. It needs a working Council.
I promise you to be such a working mayor. I promise you to build a working Council.
I Thank You!