Africa-Press – South-Africa. Durban Mayor Mxolisi Kaunda says the city made more than R1 billion rand in revenue during the festive season thanks to the high number of visitors activities such as the Durban Jazz Festival, Fact Durban Rock and Woz’eDurban attracted.
“All these activities brought thousands of visitors to the city as the accommodation occupancy rate reached 65%. This translates into 702 735 visitors with a direct spend of R1.5 billion, over R3.8 billion contribution to GDP and 7775 jobs,” he said.
Kaunda and his officials encouraged the public to visit Durban’s sewage-fraught beaches as the build-up to the festive period kicked off in early December.
But he refused to swim at Umhlanga Main Beach during a publicity stunt that was aimed at proving the beaches were safe.
Instead of swimming at Umhlanga Main Beach himself, he sent deputy City manager, Musa Gumede, who swam in polluted water.
Durban beaches were close and later reopened during most of 2022, following heavy flooding in April that damaged already neglected and ageing infrastructure.
Kaunda and his team, amid much fanfare, took a contingent of journalists to North Beach where, after an entire day of grandstanding, along with influencers and the metro police, eventually took a dip.
Soon after the swim, independent company, Talbot – the Art of Water, which has been producing accurate E. coli readings for some time, released shocking numbers which indicated that, on the very day Kaunda and Gumede took a dip in the ocean, E. coli levels were unacceptable and dangerously high.
At Umhlanga Beach, E. coli levels were 1 616/100ml – far above the acceptable level of 250 to 500.
At North Beach, the levels on the day were just over the acceptable level, at 556/100ml.
Dip in number of crime incidents and road crashes
On Thursday, Kaunda said that as a result of heightened police visibility on roads and in communities, few incidents of crime and road crashes were reported during the 2022 festive season.
“We are also pleased that due to our systematic preparation and planning, we only saw 47 separated children who were quickly reunited with their families within 24 hours.
“We attribute this success to the festive season integrated safety plan which we launched with the provincial government and the release of the new police recruits of Metro and SAPS in December.”
Kaunda said that as a result of an integrated approach to law enforcement, between 15 December 2022 and 11 January 2023, 15 617 fines were issued; 1 503 vehicles were stopped and searched; and 70 compliance inspections at businesses were conducted.
“As the City, we are encouraged that despite the challenges we experienced with some of our beaches, thousands of visitors still descended on Durban.
Looking towards Easter
“This holiday season provided us an opportunity to showcase other Durban hidden gems. Therefore, the success we have achieved during this festive season has laid a solid foundation for us to prepare for the Easter holidays.”
Kaunda said that during the festive season, only 12 beaches were open for swimming.
“As a result of the progress we have made in repairing our pump stations along the coastline, we have now been able to open more beaches.”
He said the following beaches were safe to swim at: Point, Ushaka, Addington, South Beach, Wedge, North Beach, Bay of Plenty, Toti Main, Brighton, uMdloti Main, Umgababa, Umhlanga Main, Westbrook and Battery Beach.
The beaches that are closed for swimming include Bronze, Country Club, Thekwini, Laguna, Reunion, Warner, Winkelspruit, Pipeline, Anstey’s and Causarina.
“The City continues to update the status of our beaches and pools as and when it changes. When we provided an update on the festive season in December, we indicated that only 25 swimming pools were open to the public.
“Today, because of our aggressive maintenance plan, we are happy to report that as from last week, we have seen the number of swimming pools that are open move to 31.”
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