Mbombela Municipality’s oversight committees failing

NELSPRUIT – Mbombela Municipality says its systems are not flawed; instead, the failure of its oversight committees is an issue of reprioritising. This is according to Mr Joseph Ngala, spokesman for the municipality.

The opposition in council says it is becoming increasingly worried about the Section 79 committees which are supposed to oversee spending, but are still in the dark about expenditure in the first quarter.

Mr Jo Koster, the DA caucus leader, said he was very concerned.

He said councillors failed to form a quorum at a local economic development (LED) oversight committee meeting last week, which only four DA and two ANC members attended. A minimum of eight councillors are required.

He said it was the latest in a series of oversight meetings where insufficient people showed up to form a quorum.

These included the gathering on public accounts and finance. In addition, the general managers and members of the mayoral committee (MMC) failed to show up to the technical and environmental affairs committees despite the members forming a quorum. “Council is at a standstill,” said Koster. “We are not functioning.”

Ngala admitted that MMCs'and general managers, who attend the meetings to answer for the actions taken by their departments, were sometimes absent, but claimed they had legitimate reasons. “The mentioned incumbents had lawful and genuine reasons to be absent and official apologies were tendered and accepted by the committees,” he said.

He said councillors not forming a quorum, was due to clashes in meetings, councillors being assigned to impromptu or urgent engagements and official apologies.

“This is not a unique characteristic to Mbombela, but a part of committee meeting dynamics,” he said.