Knysna manager plans to bridge poverty gap

from The Herald

By Francois Rank

BRIDGING the gap between Knysna‘s impoverished and affluent communities will be new municipal manager Johnny Douglas‘s biggest challenge.

In an interview with The Herald just days after taking up his position in the municipality, Douglas said he saw the ever-increasing gap between the “poorest of the poor” and those who were more affluent as the major issue he would have to address during his time as municipal manager.

“My vision is for Knysna to become a people-centred organisation, striving to continue rendering services that bring about change in the lives of the people it serves. We must increase the level of service to our disadvantaged communities, but maintain the level of services that we are rendering to our affluent communities. That is our biggest problem.”

Repairs to infrastructure damaged during the August floods is another issue Douglas wants to address.

“Another challenge will be spending the R31-million disaster relief money so that we can get our infrastructure up and running again.”

For the next six months Douglas will work on delivery as laid out in the current service delivery budget implementation plan.

“If you look at the plans drawn up by my predecessor, all the groundwork is there and it is just that we have to implement them – to put them into effect.”

During this implementation period, Douglas and department directors will meet to discuss and draw up a new service delivery budget implementation plan which will be put into effect from July this year until 2011.

He will meet with his directors on January 18 and on January 24 Douglas will attend his first strategy meeting with Knysna mayor Dr Doris Wakeford-Brown and members of her mayoral committee.

Douglas will also look strongly at the issue of empowerment.

“Our focus will definitely be towards local economic development to benefit our impoverished areas. So small to medium enterprises is definitely something I will look at – small, medium and micro enterprises within the next budget.”

Douglas also said the municipality would continue its strong support of tourism.

“Tourism is our biggest industry and we definitely need to foster our relationship with tourism organisations,” he said.

Originally from Fort Beaufort in the Eastern Cape, Douglas has a long history in municipal administration, starting in the Chris Hani district municipality first as the environmental health director and then as the community and social services director.

In 2004 he applied for the position of community services manager in the Eden District municipality. It was while working there that Douglas became familiar with the greater Knysna area.

“I was responsible for disaster management, fire services and municipal health.”

He was also directly involved in motivating for the disaster relief funds handed out by the Western Cape government. Douglas then applied for the position of Knysna municipal manager in October last year.

“I believe I am capable of being Knysna‘s municipal manager,” he said.