Councillors to be held ‘personally accountable’
Ugu was named the best Back to Basics performing municipality in the province.
COUNCILLORS will now be held personally accountable for their municipalities’ fruitless and wasteful expenditure, says KwaZulu-Natal MEC for Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Nomusa Dube-Ncube.
MEC Dube-Ncube told councillors that should ratepayers’ money be wasted, they must be prepared to face the music.
Dube-Ncube was speaking at the relaunch of the provincial Back to Basics Indaba held in Pietermaritzburg last Friday.
The MEC believes that every cent of ratepayers’ money lost through fruitless and wasteful expenditure by councils where councillors deliberately chose to neglect their oversight role should be actively recouped from those councillors as a way of managing consequences for such blatant dereliction of duty.
“The Back to Basics programme makes it clear that all municipalities must concentrate their efforts into providing required services to communities,” said Ms Dube Ncube.
The MEC added that these included developing and providing maintenance to key infrastructure.
“Each council must ensure oversight over every cent and that all decisions are in line with the legislative framework that governs local government.”
During the Back to Basic Indaba, mayors, including Ray Nkonyeni Municipality mayor Cynthia Mqwebu signed the back to basics pledge which included ensuring good governance, basic services, and finance management.
Both Ugu and Ray Nkonyeni Municipalities received accolades for the implementation of the policy and Ugu was named the best Back to Basics performing municipality in the province.
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