STATEMENT BY EXECUTIVE MAYOR, CLLR BABALWA LOBISHE
COUNCIL MEETING
WEDNESDAY, 13 MAY 2026,
FEATHERMARKET HALL
Good day,
Speaker of Council, Council Chief Whip, Deputy Executive Mayor, Members of the Mayoral Committee, the Whippery, all Councillors present and the officials at large led by our Acting City Manager.
We continue to reel under the enormous pressure brought about by the intense flooding incident which visited us over the past week.
The damage to infrastructure and personal properties from these floods is extensive and runs into multimillions.
More concerning has been the emotional distress of the victims of the floods and ravaging winds.
The disruption of basic services infrastructure including water and energy and electricity has been the most concerning as it has hit our residents in the pockets.
As you may be aware, we activated the Joint Operations Centre (JOC) as soon as we received the early warnings. JOC continues to convene.
This morning the focus will bring together Executive Directors from the above environments with a view to emerging with the most effective intervention strategies to speed up the recovery efforts and operations so as not to prolong the painfully long periods that some of our residents have suffered from the lack of energy and water, among other impacts.
We will do our utmost best to assist the indigent. We reiterate that we do not have the policy means to assist with all the instances and we therefore encourage communities to claim from their insurances.
You will, no doubt be aware that last week on Wednesday, 6 May we honoured the second episode of accounting to parliament. As previously stated, we are committed to public accountability, and we will use our experience as a mirror which reflects on the speed with which we must implement our turnaround plan.
