This now becomes at least the 14th municipality in the province to be put under the care of the provincial government. Mokgoro says following a meeting by the provincial executive committee (EXCO) a resolution was taken to invoke section 139 1(c), leading to the dissolving to the municipality.

Since June 2018, a combination of declining performance, as well as the interventions by Local Government Minister Zweli Mkhize, led to 13 municipalities being placed under administration.

Mokgoro says the municipality was already placed under section 139(b) with the hope that the intervention will help yield positive results but on the contrary things spiralled out control.

The Municipal Manager (MM), Mokgatlhe Ratlhogo, and the Chief Financial Officer (CFO), Itumeleng Lekawa, were earlier suspended by the newly appointed Administrator, Charmaine Perreira. This after an administrator was allegedly made aware of large scale corruption within the municipality which led to the subsequent seizure of municipal computers as part of a forensic investigation. Also, earlier residents of Schweizer-Reneke implored the then Cooperative Governance (Cogta) Minister, Zweli Mkhize, to call for the dissolution of the Municipality.

This after Mamusa formed part of the twelve municipalities in the province identified as dysfunctional and in need of urgent assistance to recover. Residents accused the municipality of deep-rooted corruption. Mamusa falls under the Dr Ruth Segomotsi Mompati District Municipality, which forms part of four municipalities that invested R314 million with the now-defunct VBS Mutual Bank.

The district municipality transferred a total of R150 million to VBS earlier in 2018, but only R101 million is reflected as having been invested with the beleaguered bank by the Vryburg-based municipality.

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