Hlengwa promises 5,000 more metro police and a water crisis committee for eThekwini
The IFP's mayoral candidate says water security would be the centre of an IFP-led Durban, but a political analyst says the party still has to show how it would pay for and staff the plan.
IFP mayoral candidate for eThekwini Mkhuleko Hlengwa has pledged to create a mayoral water crisis committee and to recruit an additional 5,000 metro police officers over five years if his party takes the metro in the coming local government elections.
As IOL reported on 6 October, Hlengwa briefed IFP supporters and eThekwini residents on his plans for the city, placing water security at the centre of an IFP administration and promising a broad coalition of academics and technical experts to help run it.
Hlengwa said the party had spent the past two years trying to slow the decline of the city’s water system. “Over the past two years, the IFP has worked tirelessly to arrest the continued deterioration of the water crisis in eThekwini, and we must now change course,” he said. IFP councillor Mdu Nkosi currently chairs the municipality’s Trading Services Committee, which oversees the water function.
The proposed Mayoral Water Crisis Committee would bring together representatives from government, the private sector, traditional leadership, civil society, academia, law-enforcement agencies, TVET colleges and community structures. Hlengwa said it would be led by the mayor and would drive a “whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach” focused on water interventions until the crisis is resolved.
He framed the issue in household terms. “Water security is not glamorous. But when a mother in Umlazi opens a tap in the morning and water runs out, that is government working,” he said.
Under his plan, the city would move from emergency response to long-term resilience by 2027, with infrastructure maintenance becoming a routine part of municipal operations. Water losses would be tracked, and Hlengwa said the five-year programme’s goal was not simply to repair a few pipes but to build a municipal water system that is “measurable, maintained, accountable and resilient”.
On safety, Hlengwa said the city would recruit 5,000 additional metro police officers over five years, fund and formally integrate community-policing structures through budget reallocations, and build partnerships with private security companies. He said municipal police stations would be expanded into areas where the South African Police Service is absent, including through mobile police stations, with a focus on transport interchanges.
He also singled out extortion, which has become a running concern for businesses, contractors and traders in the province. “Extortion of businesses, contractors, traders or communities undermines economic activity and public authority. We will not tolerate extortion and organised criminal conduct,” he said.
EThekwini is one of the most hotly contested municipalities in the country, and several parties have put high-profile figures forward as mayoral candidates. Water has become a central campaign issue, with billions of rand already invested in city infrastructure and further spending planned.
Political analyst Professor Musa Xulu said the IFP would struggle to win the numbers it needs to take the metro. “The IFP does not have a good image, especially in black communities, because it is heavily associated with black-on-black violence. Until the IFP addresses the stigma of the black-on-black violence that it is generally perceived to have initiated and carried out with deadly force, eThekwini will remain very difficult for the party to win over,” he said.
On the water promise itself, Xulu said the plan needs engineering detail before it can be judged. “Water service delivery is an engineering issue, which becomes political only if the engineering is not good. The IFP should say how many qualified water engineers it will employ. Otherwise, it is simply repeating what other political parties are saying,” he said.
For residents, the pledges translate into two services they deal with daily: whether water comes out of the tap and whether they feel safe on the street or at a taxi rank. Both promises depend on money and staff the municipality does not currently have in place, and both would take years to deliver.
Source: IOL, Hlengwa pledges water-crisis committee and 5,000 more metro police officers.
