Twenty-six Makana Municipality officials spent the end of last week in planning sesssions at a luxury beach resort, leaving behind locked offices and unanswered phones.
Twenty-six Makana Municipality officials spent the end of last week in planning sesssions at a luxury beach resort, leaving behind locked offices and unanswered phones.
Phone calls to the mayor's and municipal manager's offices went straight to voicemail, and a visit to the municipality found the gate at the staircase leading up to Makana's nerve centre firmly locked.
There was no indication – either in the form of a notice at the city hall, or in the media, that the office of the Mayor would be closed on Thursday and Friday, so the discovery that the municipality had booked in at no fewer than three resorts came as a shock to the Grocott's Mail news team.
The 26 officials from the Mayor's, Municipal Manager's and Speaker's offices spent Thursday night at Mpekweni Beach Resort. Out-of season rates quoted by Mpekweni on their website start at R640 per person per night, including dinner, bed and breakfast.
Mpekweni is not far from the four-star Fish River Sun, which was the venue for Thembinkosi Myalato's technical and infrastructure directorate's strategic planning session last month.
Every directorate in the municipality has its own strategic planning session. On Friday, the Local Economic Development directorate, under Riana Meiring, booked in for the day at Temba Game Reserve and Olive Park Lodge outside Grahamstown.
The Finance directorate, on the other hand, booked the no-frills Hill Street municipal library for their next session.
Each directorate uses their own discretion where they want to hold a strategic planning session, municipal spokesperson Mncedisi Boma explained.
He told Grocott's Mail on Thursday afternoon that officials from the Mayor's, Municipal Manager's and Speaker's offices had initially been booked in at Green Fountain Farm Resort outside Port Alfred and would return on Friday afternoon.
Myalato, who is also the acting municipal manager, later explained that the session had been moved to Mpekweni, because Green Fountain was fully booked. "It is always good to take it out of the office," Boma said later.
Explaining the reason for the outings, Boma and Myalato told Grocott's Mail yesterday that all government institutions were required to hold such strategic planning meetings.
Boma said they wanted to be in a quiet area where there would be no disturbances. "Here [in Grahamstown]it would be disturbed, as our primary customers – the community – would want to be attended to and we would have to respond immediately."
He said they had made sure that enough employees remained in the municipal offices to attend to the community's needs.
Asked why the municipality had chosen venues outside Makana municipality, Myalato said the venues had been decided by office administrators, who understood which venues would be most appropriate for such sessions.
Boma promised to find out how much the whole exercise had cost the municipality. DA councillor Brian Jackson expressed shock at the decision to hold the planning sessions at outside venues.
"I presume they wanted to be away from the distractions – but they could have used a Makana product. I attended the LED strategic session and it was here in Grahamstown and it was a productive meeting. We will submit a letter to the speaker's office because we want to know why did they have to go out of Makana," said Jackson.
Jackson said they had heard about the planning meetings at the last minute. Two other councillors, asked about the strategic meetings, were also surprised, saying they knew nothing about them.
Boma said the theme for the Mayor's, municipal manager's and Speaker's strategic planning meeting was 'All committed in doing things better, faster and differently.'
"We have put emphasis on youth development and we came up with a decade-long plan for this. Each directorate in the municipality will use this blueprint for youth development in Makana," he said. Boma added that the youth development plan would be reviewed from time to time.
