GEORGE NEWS - When George Council unanimously approved the appointment of Dr Michele Gratz as municipal manager on a five-year contract on 14 April 2022, she had already been acting in the position for nearly 16 months, since January 2021.

At the time, former mayor Leon van Wyk referred to the critical role she had played as acting municipal manager in the turnaround process since the beginning of January 2021, stabilising the administration, making key appointments, ensuring that capital projects were executed on time and that grants were spent in terms of their conditions.

If she didn't resign, her five-year contract would only have expired in April 2027, more than three years from now. 

George Herald asked Gratz to give an overview of the last three-and-a-half years since starting in the post of acting municipal manager back in 2021. 

Her long list of highlights indicate an incredible amount of work completed during her tenure as municipal manager. This ranges from successful applications for massive grants to solar plants, a new cellphone app for lodging complaints, three consecutive clean audits, and outstanding crisis and disaster management, such as the excellent team work displayed during the Victoria Street building disaster on 6 May this year. 

Herewith a summary of the highlights, in her own words:

A lot of resources in terms of funding and human capital have been invested in the upgrading and expansion of infrastructure.

In 2021, an application was made to National Treasury for a BFI (Budget Facility Infrastructure) grant. George was the first non-metro to successfully apply for such a grant. The R1.1bn received made it possible to embark on 12 water-related projects which were very much needed. These included amongst others an expansion of the water treatment plant by 50%, reservoirs in Thembalethu and Pacaltsdorp as well as a balancing dam.

• The sewerage treatment works was also upgraded by 50%.

• Many solar projects have been completed to ensure that George operations continue during loadshedding and to reduce own electricity consumption. These include a solar plant for the water treatment works, wastewater treatment works and various municipal buildings. Recently a 1 MW plant was commissioned and a 9MW plant is due to commence soon.

• A significant highlight was the roll out of phase 4A Go George bus service into Thembalethu which made the service accessible for many more commuters. The roll out of the service into Thembalethu has been a challenge for many years and it was significant that the rollout took place without any safety incidents.

• Various ways of improving service delivery were addressed. This included a new app for logging complaints and a service delivery monitoring meeting held every Friday to address outstanding complaints. The festive season in particular, was actively managed through daily meetings to monitor and address all challenges and ensure the safety of visitors and cleanliness of facilities. Three Blue Flag beaches and one Green Coastal Award was obtained indicating the high standard at all beaches. The turnaround times for approval of compliant and complete building plans was reduced to less than 15 days. George has successfully automated the development continuum, including land use planning, environmental, building plans and transfer applications. This is a best practice which is now being replicated nationally.

Dr Michele Gratz, former mayor Leon Van Wyk, former portfolio councillor for Finance and Strategic Services Dirk Wessels and Chief Financial Officer Riaan du Plessis with a Clean Audit Trophy, awarded on 2 June 2023 in Saldanha Bay.

• Governance was improved through the revision of approximately 30 by-laws and numerous policies. Three consecutive clean audits were obtained. National Treasury evaluated George Municipality as having sound institutional arrangements, sound financial health, sound financial governance and sound service delivery.

• There were many crises and disasters to deal with. These included pipe bursts where the reservoirs were critically low and the town only had two hours of purified water in storage. Through excellent teamwork, George was able to avert and deal effectively with these crises. The recent building collapse in Victoria Street was one of the most stressful, but also one of my proudest moments as Municipal Manager. Teams worked day and night and the excellent co-operation between the various government and non-government departments led to a rescue rate of 54.8%, which is truly remarkable when compared with international statistics. The five-storey building collapse site was cleared within ten days.

Challenges

Gratz said that the post has obviously not been without its challenges.

"Most of the challenges are not unique to George Municipality, such as the myriad of legislation that makes progress slow and at times delays projects and service delivery." She said limited funding and high expectations from the public to render services that are not a municipal function also places a strain on the municipal coffers.

"What is unique to George is that we are a growing town, and dealing with the infrastructure needs of a rapidly increasing population has posed many challenges," she said.

"Applications for additional funding have been an onerous, at times complicated, and a time-consuming process, but have yielded good results. In addition to the BFI grant, we were successful in obtaining R237m for 34 projects as a result of the flooding in November 2021 as well as R505m for upgrading of roads.

"George Municipality is blessed with some excellent officials and I have no doubt that George will continue to prosper and grow."

‘We bring you the latest Garden Route, Hessequa, Karoo news’