Corporate Services Director Mr B Douglas gave an overview on the performance of the department as well as its challenges. Key in the presentation was the implementation of Municipal Bylaws.

The Municipality after over 6 years without a Director finally employed a permanent Director and a Human Resources Manager. Two other  critical vacancies which have been filled by the institution after numerous findings during audits  were the Senior Internal Auditor as well as The ICT and Systems Administrator positions. The department continues to capacitate its human capital.

The Department of Education’s Mr Mabece gave a presentation which also highlighted the upwards trajectory in terms of performance from the schools within this district. Mzuvukile is currently the best performing high school in Great Kei and Morgenstar is the best performing Primary school.

Home Affairs Mr A Van Heerden from Home affairs tabled a presentation, One of the key issues he wanted to encourage was that new born be registered at birth or at least within the first 30 days after birth. The Home Affairs officials come to the Qumrha Hospital every Friday to assist with Birth Registrations.

On the contentious issue of Foreign Nationals  and spaza shop ownerships, he explained that the Departments sole responsibility is to check that the Foreign Nationals were infact legally in the country-that they had the proper documentation / permit as per Home Affairs requirements. The only time they will affect an arrest is if the foreigner is illegally in the country, however in terms of the spaza shop license, that is not their area of expertise.

The Department of Agriculture’s Mr YB Fadana

Gave a presentation and touched on a partnership that is in the pipework’s between GKM and Dept of Agriculture to ensure that as Great Kei is agriculturally rich, both organisations collaborate to ensure that this agricultural wealth translates to economic wealth for the people or Great Kei especially for small scale farmers.

Presentations were then tabled by INZALO, Standard Bank and Great Kei SPV.

As part of their CSI (Corporate Social Investment) INZALO then donated 235 school shoes as part of the Back to school Programme, some of these were handed over today to a very elated Mayor.