The embattled eMadlangeni municipality in Utrecht, has been placed under provincial administration in terms of section 139(1)(b) of the Constitution, following the collapse of governance and service delivery, according to KZN Cogta MEC Nomusa Dube-Ncube.

“The Provincial Executive has resolved during its recent meeting to place the beleaguered eMadlangeni local municipality under administration following poor governance and administrative collapse which resulted in legally questionable council decisions and the culture of impunity in this council. There is clearly no adherence to the rule of law,” said Dube-Ncube.

This state of affairs has crippled the municipality in its constitutional mandate of ensuring the provision of basic services. Some of the problems faced by the municipality include inconsistent water supply, poor state of municipal infrastructure like roads and electricity. “The municipality was virtually operating as a ‘banana republic’ where legislative prescripts governing municipalities were not being observed, ” according to the MEC.

“Since the reconstitution of this municipality, councillors have been embroiled in infighting and illegal suspensions and hiring of staff without any adherence to the rules and procedures. The root cause of troubles at eMadlangeni is political infighting which has resulted in irregular decisions by the municipal council. These include, among other issues, the suspension of the Municipal Manager and the appointment of an Acting Municipal Manager who did not meet the requisite requirements for the job,” said Dube-Ncube.

“This decision of Cabinet comes after a long period of support by KZN Cogta and coaching by the executive council. The deliberately orchestrated instability has effectively halted service delivery and exposed the municipality to various risks, including litigation, corruption, fraud and maladministration. Clearly, as the provincial government, we are not satisfied with the performance of the municipality and we have to act timeously in the best interest of the eMadlangeni community,” said Dube-Ncube.

KZN Cogta is appointing an administrator who will assume the powers of Mayor and Municipal Manager. One of the immediate tasks of the administrator is to come up with a recovery plan aimed at securing the municipality’s ability to meet its obligations to provide basic services including its financial commitments.

“Today we met with all councillors, management and staff members through the Head of Department. We urge everyone to cooperate with the intervention and we appeal to all stakeholders to work together to turn things around in the municipality for the sake of the community. During the intervention, the department will be working hard to make sure that service delivery is fast-tracked and that there are consequences for those who took wrong and reckless decisions that have prejudiced the municipality,” said Dube-Ncube.

The department believes that communities’ right to uninterrupted service delivery is supreme and when municipalities fail to deliver, KZN Cogta has to step in. Since the 2016 local government elections, such interventions have taken place at Nquthu local and uMzinyathi district municipalities.