Cllr Tebogo Tlhokwe, leader of the Democratic Alliance Caucus of Emfuleni Local Municipality, writes:

For the past 12 months the Democratic Alliance (DA) has demonstrated in Emfuleni  Council that the governing party has no clue what it is doing with Emfuleni Local Municipality (ELM). We have exposed the inadequacy and effective incapacity of the cadres deployed at Emfuleni.

Malicious compliance has been the order of the day. The DA highlighted incorrect financial statements, unrealistic budgets and non-compliance of quarterly service delivery targets.

There has been no appetite from the Executive Mayor to enter into a performance agreement as required by section 57 of the Structures Act with the Accounting officer (Municipal Manager) to monitor his performance and subsequently hold him accountable in many non performance areas.

Things have deteriorated even under the intervention of province through Section 139(1)b. Money had to be sent back to treasury unspent in this dire time where the municipality needs it the most. For the past two financial years R10 million was taken from Emfuleni and given to Midvaal because of lack of expertise from Emfuleni to spend, whereas Midvaal has a clear plan how to utilize the funds.

The DA has demonstrated how impossible it is for the municipality to even contemplate increasing tariffs whereas they fail to render basic services.

We have continuously indicated the state of deteriorating debt that the municipality is sinking into.

We have exposed costly contracts entered into by the municipality like the BXC contract which eventually came back to haunt the municipality by attaching the bank accounts of the municipality.

Since 2019 creditors have been attaching Municipal assets to pay themselves and it has been going on and on, and, the municipality was always found on the back foot because it’s legal department is rendered useless; whether deliberately by collusion or purely incompetence. 

All these woes are not over and are going to be inherited by the new administration to be elected on the 27th of October 2021. The question is “What will it take for Emfuleni municipality to change for the better?”

1. Respect for the rule of law;
2. Clean and Accountable administration;
3. Intensive and competitive oversight from Council;
4. Implementation of Consequence Management;
5. Monitoring and Evaluation of performance of all staff;
6. Implementation of innovative ways to improve Revenue collection;
7. Implementation of a realistic and funded budget at R5 billion rather than “Hope” unfunded budget of R6 billion;
8. Pay creditors; especially SMMEs which are rendering daily services to the municipality;
9. Implementation of Innovative ways to render Basic services;
10. Re-Negotiate our litigation challenges to stop the continuous legal defeat which causes a lot of loss of money;
11. Get buy-in from Emfuleni community into re-building the municipality together, by participating in keeping the environment clean;
12. Revitalization of our HR systems; and 13. Master the indigent policy and capturing of indigents to have a realistic indigent register.

These are but just a few things that can be done to at least begin to turnaround the plight of Emfuleni Local Municipality.

There must be a shift of mindset from Councillors, communities and municipal staff alike. All of us need to take charge of re-building the municipality.

The biggest mistake will be to try and re-invent the wheel: the Municipal Finance Management Act, both the Structures Act and Systems Act together with the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa are there to guide us to do justice to rendering services and upholding the human rights of the residents of Emfuleni Local Municipality.