MBOMBELA – The provincial government is to create a Municipal Support Unit to offer permanent assistance to struggling municipalities.
Mr Zibonele Mngwango, spokesman for the premier Mr David Mabuza said the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) was being restructured to offer permanent support because the province’s assistance to municipalities had been more disruptive than helpful in the past.
“Government has considered that it has not been providing structured support to municipalities. What government is doing now is creating a new unit to provide permanent support to municipalities.”
This follows a letter from Eskom warning AfriForum that the utility company planned to disconnect bulk electricity supply to Thaba Chweu Municipality (TCM) as the latter had not honoured its repayment agreement.
This deal was struck in November after TCM became R164 million in arrears. According to Eskom, this amount has since increased to R196 million. “We know that TCM is managing the situation.”
Mngwango explained that Mabuza was confident there would be improvement this time around, due to the creation of this special unit. Mabuza also promised the new Auditor-General (AG) improvements on municipal performance following bad audit outcomes. Thaba Chweu, Bushbuckridge, Mkhondo, Msukaligwa and Emalahleni municipalities received disclaimers in 2012/13.
New AG Mr Kimi Makwetu visited the province on Thursday of last week and pointed out problems such as the lack of consequences for poor performance and transgressions, slow response by leadership to address the root causes of such performance, non-filling of key vacant and incompetent officials.
“We will act against poor performance. We must take drastic action because there is an indication from the leadership of municipalities that there is lack of willingness,” Mabuza said.
