Cash-strapped Amathole district municipality has approved a R2.3m “brand repositioning strategy” in a desperate attempt to change negative public perceptions about it.
The strategy was approved in a council meeting on Friday.
“The people’s confidence in ADM’s governance capabilities has [been] depleted resulting in an unwillingness among customers to pay their financial obligations to ADM for services rendered, investors are unwilling to support the development agency [Aspire’s] business plans and there is poor attendance at ADM’s outreach programmes,” said acting mayor Zibuthe Mnqwazi, who stood in for Winnie Nxawe.
The ongoing water outages and drought “reports” were also blamed for the bad image projected.
“The institution’s financial position has also tainted the image and resulted in low staff morale,” he said.
The municipality’s R600m Siyenza toilet scandal, had also contributed to this bad image being projected.
The Dispatch had earlier exposed the fact that millions of rands had improperly been paid to the politically connected company.
As part of the new plan to spruce up the ADM’s public image, staff and councillors were instructed to:
Make sure they did not bring themselves and the municipality into disrepute;
Be good ambassadors,
Learn from their mistakes and those of others; and
Benchmark themselves against the best.
However, DA councillor Jean Lombard said that improving the ADM’s image would difficult while its delivery of services was so poor...