VEREENIGING. – The Gauteng MEC for Human Settlements, Urban Planning and CoGTA, Lebogang Maile called the Emfuleni Local Municipality (ELM) a “disaster of monumental proportions”, “a catastrophe”, adding that things have fallen apart.
The comments were made during an oversight visit on Tuesday .
Maile was joined by Sedibeng District Mayor, Lerato Maloka, ELM Mayor, Gift Moerane and senior inter-departmental officials.
The inspection is intended to unlock the deadlock and accelerate service delivery.
The Gauteng Executive Council (Exco) decided to place the municipality under administration as a result of total collapse of governance and service delivery.
During a briefing session at the Vereeniging City Hall, Maile stated that this time around, his focal point would be on revenue, electricity, fleet management and waste.
Gauteng’s two Metros, namely the City of Johannesburg and City of Ekurhuleni will assist Emfuleni in expediting service delivery and improving its revenue collection rate.
“I have requested the Mayors from the two Metros and their MMCs to join us today as they have common practices they can share in terms of service delivery. I have been asked why I did not ask Midvaal to help. The reason is that Midvaal is five times smaller than ELM.” Maile said it made more sense to ask the Metros to step in as they are bigger than ELM and have more capacity.
“As a result of the total collapse of governance and service delivery ravaging the municipality, a reconfigured team of administrators appointed by Exco to normalize and stabilize the municipality have been working tirelessly over the past couple of months.
“The visits afford us an opportunity to see first hand whether we are making any progress or strides in terms of the intervention. We can see some progress, but we could have done better by now.”
During the visit MEC Maile received a detailed and comprehensive report from the political leadership of the municipality, including from the team of administrators.
Maile reported that a significant number of resources have been injected to give the Exco intervention visible and tangible evidence of delivery.
“R53 million has been allocated for waste and fleet management; R173m for the rehabilitation of roads, repairing of traffic lights, MISA to provide human capacity and support, water and sanitation fixing and repairing sewage systems.
“We don’t have the luxury of pointing fingers now. We want to see service delivery taking place at a high scale, improving the lives of the residents of Emfuleni for the better”.
