After months of speculation, it has been revealed that Inkosi Langalibalele Local Municipality will be placed under administration.
This decision has been taken by the Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs MEC Nomsa Dube Ncube.

The local municipality sent this statement confirming the move:

“Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs, MEC Nomusa Dube Ncube has sent a letter to Inkosi Langalibalele Local Municipality, stating her intention to place the municipality under administration by invoking Section 139 (1) (b) of the constitution of South Africa.

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The section involves the assumption of responsibility for the relevant obligation in the municipality.

The African national Congress caucus in the municipality has welcomed this decision by the Provincial Executive Council and has engaged the MEC on areas that need this intervention. The turnaround strategy will be executed by the Administrator once all the processes has been done to formally appoint and introduce this Administrator to the Council and other relevant stakeholders as advised by the provincial government, council and municipal directors.

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Inkosi Langalibalele Local Municipality has been under severe financial challenges in the form of cash flow problems and revenue shortages which has impacted negatively on the financial sustainability and delivery of basic needs or services to the community. Amongst other challenges are labour matters (parity after the merger of former Imbabazane and Mtshezi and labour disputes), litigations and we hope with the interaction by provincial government the culture of discipline and work among our officials will be instilled.

The deployment of the administrator will assist the municipality. The decision must be seen as the seriousness with which the government views the service delivery problems within the municipality.

As the council we will also urge that a full forensic audit be done to investigate all activities in our municipality so that we can easily identify our financial irregularities.

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The administrator will be here to assist the municipality in certain areas as requested to solve the challenges we are currently facing. Councillors would remain and continue doing their jobs. Most of them are very passionate towards the improvement of the lives of their communities and will support the administrator during intervention period.

The community of our Municipality deserves a better functioning municipality and we welcome the help we are receiving from our government.”

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