Central SA
Troubled North West municipal council dissolved─── LUCKY NKUYANE 13:01 Thu, 15 Sep 2022
The North West provincial government dissolved the troubled Lichtenburg-based Ditsobotla Local Municipal Council on Thursday 15 September 2022.
This was after the municipality had two mayors and two municipal managers at loggerheads.
OFM News previously reported that the municipality alleged that one of the two managers, who was not elected by the council, allegedly had access to the banking system of the municipality. This created trouble for the municipality's financial stability. The province is set to provide further details on the dissolution of this council.
In February, the MEC for Cooperative Governance (Cogta), Lenah Miga, scolded the mayor for allegedly appointing a municipal manager (MM) of his own accord. Miga, in a statement, accused the mayor of contravening the Municipal Systems Act 2000, by appointing an acting Municipal Manager without a council resolution.
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"(We) condemned, in the strongest terms, the people holding the Ditsobotla Municipality at ransom by causing disruptions affecting service delivery in the area. The mayor’s decision to appoint an acting Municipal Manager without a council resolution is not only regrettable but is also in contravention of Section 54 (a) of the Municipal Systems Act of 2000.“
Last year, on 3 December 2021, the council at its formal sitting resolved to appoint an acting Municipal Manager. When the said MM was on sick leave in January this year, the Mayor appointed another acting Municipal Manager without a council resolution," she added.
Earlier this year, the issues troubling this municipality led to the non-payment of 800 employees on time due to cash flow challenges.
In July 2022, the Chairperson for the South African Local Government Association (Salga) in the North West, Khumalo Molefe, urged the provincial government to ramp up its effort and deal with the issues troubling the aforementioned municipality.
Molefe added that “Ditsobotla must be placed under section 139 (b) subsection 7, which states that 'where a province is unable to perform a responsibility favourably'... and in this case, our argument as Salga is that our province has been intervening over the years in Ditsobotla through section 139 b. We don’t know how many administrators were placed there. It has not worked simply because all of us are conflicted”.
