Opposition parties in J.B. Marks query a report the executive mayor of J.B. Marks, Gaba Ka Qhele, presented to the council at a general council meeting on Tuesday, 28 November. According to DA constituency head, Chris Hattingh, the report contained numerous misrepresentations, some made in error, while others appeared to have been made deliberately to hide the real state of affairs of the municipality from councillors.

“Some councillors described this report, where the mayor was legally compelled to account for the implementation of the budget and the financial state of the municipality, as ‘cooked”, while demanding explanations for misrepresentations and deficiencies in the report. Not even the fact that the report was unsigned, as required, could persuade mayor Ka Qhele and his ANC praise singers to deviate from their strategy to deflect,” stated Hattingh.

He highlighted concerns about alleged manipulation of the revenue of the Department of Public Safety, regarding not issuing traffic fines. “Income in that Department, predominantly derived from fines, collapsed from almost R8 million per month to a meagre R8,000 per month during the last quarter. This presents almost a 100 per cent drop in income,” he added.

Hattingh also emphasised that the municipality had only spent 13 per cent of the amount received for the Integrated Electrification Programme and the Municipal Water Infrastructure Grant during the first quarter.

“This while J.B. Marks residents suffer from the lack of these services. Not even the forfeiture of R59 million to National Treasury during the previous financial year could trigger a real commitment to improve service delivery in the J.B. Marks Municipality,” he stated.

FF Plus councillor, Thys Rossouw, pointed out that the municipality risks losing millions due to the underspending of capital grants from the provincial government.“ The municipality is already 51 per cent behind on its capital expenditure targets for the year. This is totally unacceptable and the FF Plus insisted that action be taken against those who expose the municipality to financial risks,” said Rossouw.

According to him, J.B. Marks had to repay R49 million to the North West provincial government due to underspending, in a municipality where infrastructure is falling apart and there is little talk of developing and upgrading it.

“The FF Plus also pointed out several other procedural and financial system deficiencies in the quarterly financial statements presented to the council. The state of financial management in J.B. Marks is worrying,” mentioned Rossouw.