The Ugu District Municipality () is one of the 11 districts of the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa. Ugu is isiZulu for "coast" or "water's edge". It governs the KZN South Coast and its seat is Port Shepstone. The majority of its 722,484 inhabitants spoke isiZulu as of 2011. The district code is DC21.

The largest towns in the municipality are Port Shepstone, Margate, Umzinto, Scottburgh and Harding.

Geography The boundaries of the Ugu District Municipality which covers an area of 5866 square kilometres, coincide with the boundaries of the geographical area of the KwaZulu-Natal South Coast. The municipality stretches 112 kilometres along the coast from Scottburgh in the north to Port Edward in the south and Harding in the west (interior).

The municipality is 84% rural and 16% urban which is the pillar of its successful economy. The municipality consists of eighty one (81) municipal wards, which are in its local municipalities, namely Ray Nkonyeni, Umzumbe, Umdoni and Umuziwabantu. The region also includes forty two (42) traditional authorities.

Topography Being a coastal strip, the topography generally falls towards the coast and is segmented by many water courses (streams/rivers) resulting in numerous hills and valleys as well as very flat areas along the coast.

Mismanagement In 2020, the Portfolio Committee on Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) released a report in which various corruption-related matters in the municipality were addressed. In the wake of the report the municipal manager, D.D. Naidoo, was removed from his post. The municipality is suffering from poor service delivery as a direct consequence of its poor management and defective tender procedures. The water crises is real and the UGU municipality doesn't respond to complaints raised by the residents. Some parts in the UGU district has no has water for 8 months.

Local municipalities The district contains the following local municipalities:

Local municipalityPopulation%Dominant languageRay Nkonyeni 308 675 37.70%ZuluUmzumbe 193 764 27.52%ZuluuMuziwabantu 92 322 13.11%ZuluuMdoni 78 8758.85%Zulu

Neighbours Ugu is surrounded by:

Umgungundlovu to the north (DC22) eThekwini to the north-east (Greater Durban) the Indian Ocean to the east Alfred Nzo to the south (DC44) Harry Gwala to the west (DC43)

Demographics The following statistics are from the 2011 census.

Languages LanguagePopulation%IsiZulu 588,483 82.69%English 58,801 8.26%IsiXhosa 30,440 4.28%Afrikaans 14,616 2.05%IsiNdebele 7,191 1.01%Setswana 3,441 0.48%Sign language 2,704 0.38%Other2,198 0.31%Sepedi 1,558 0.22%Sesotho 1,511 0.21%Tshivenda 319 0.04%SiSwati 229 0.03%Xitsonga 214 0.03%

Gender GenderPopulation%Female 383,323 53.06%Male 339,161 46.94%

Ethnic group Ethnic groupPopulation%African 654,773 90.63%White 35,723 4.94%Indian/Asian 24,711 3.42%Coloured 6,123 0.85%Other 1,154 0.16%

Age AgePopulation%000 - 004 76 009 10.80%005 - 009 91 171 12.95%010 - 014 94 511 13.42%015 - 019 90 364 12.84%020 - 024 60 699 8.62%025 - 029 49 685 7.06%030 - 034 39 537 5.62%035 - 039 38 238 5.43%040 - 044 32 451 4.61%045 - 049 25 936 3.68%050 - 054 24 122 3.43%055 - 059 19 163 2.72%060 - 064 18 861 2.68%065 - 069 15 046 2.14%070 - 074 13 976 1.99%075 - 079 6 998 0.99%080 - 084 4 522 0.64%085 - 089 1 631 0.23%090 - 094 688 0.10%095 - 099 291 0.04%100 plus 102 0.01%

Politics Election results Election results for Ugu in the South African general election, 2004. Population 18 and over: 385 659 [54.78% of total population] Total votes: 216 751 [30.79% of total population] Voting % estimate: 56.20% votes as a % of population 18 and over PartyVotes%African National Congress 124 925 57.64%Inkhata Freedom Party 59 740 27.56%Democratic Alliance 17 121 7.90%African Christian Democratic Party 3 678 1.70%Minority Front 2 245 1.04%United Democratic Movement 1 715 0.79%Independent Democrats 1 218 0.56%Freedom Front Plus 1 049 0.48%New National Party 842 0.39%Azanian People's Organisation 768 0.35%Pan African Congress 480 0.22%SOPA 448 0.21%United Christian Democratic Party 424 0.20%EMSA 382 0.18%UF 380 0.18%PJC 349 0.16%CDP 281 0.13%TOP 265 0.12%NA 183 0.08%KISS 155 0.07%NLP 103 0.05%Total 216 751 100.00%

References

External links Ugu DM Official website