Rustenburg-The North West provincial government has dissolved the troubled Ditsobotla local municipality following months of instability at the municipality.
"The Executive Council during its urgent meeting convened on Wednesday 14th September 2022 approved the recommendation from the department of COGHSTA [Cooperative Governance, Human Settlements and Traditional Affairs] and resolved to invoke Section 139 (1) (c) of the Constitution of Republic of South Africa, with immediate effect," spokesperson Brian Setswambung said in a statement.
"An administrator will be appointed to take over the running of the municipality to ensure continuity of service delivery and consult with national treasury to secure the release of the equitable share of the Ditsobotla local municipality," he said.
The provincial government said, in the recent past, the municipal council was divided into two groups and each of the two councils elected a mayor and appointed a municipal manager.
"Despite various intervention measures by provincial government through the COGHSTA department, the municipality failed to remedy the situation. Only a week ago, the municipal council resolved to request the MEC for COGHSTA to second an official from the province to act as a municipal manager.
"The MEC responded positively to this request by seconding an official from the department. The council rejected this appointment and prevented the official from taking office as acting municipal manager," Setswambung said.
As a result, the equitable share of the municipality remains withheld, and the municipality was unable to pay salaries of workers and compulsory third party payments.
"This week, employees held municipal councillors hostage in demand of their August salaries which remain unpaid.
"The Executive Council has taken all these matters into consideration including the interest of the public, disruptions to delivery of services, threats to public safety and stability as well as hampering of effective functioning of economic and business activity in the municipality."
The Democratic Alliance [DA] in North West said it noted the decision to proceed with the proposed dissolution of the Ditsobotla Local Municipality under Section 139(1)(c).
"The fact that this drastic proposal comes less than a year after the local government elections, is an indication that the ANC government has no plan to deal with municipalities failing to deliver basic services.
"The decision to resort to such a drastic constitutional measure says a lot about the ANC and its inability to discipline its members," said Freddy Sonakile, DA caucus leader in the North West Provincial Legislature.
"Ditsobotla does require urgent intervention to restore governance and service delivery, but a blanket dissolution where ANC will field the same candidates will be a waste of time and resources," Sonakile said.
Sonakile said the provincial executive must now report on all intervention measures that they invoked in Ditsobotla, as the situation deteriorated under their view, with some of them involved in the Ditsobotla debacle.
"They must also explain if constitutional provisions such as Section 139 (5)(a) empowering Provincial Treasury to take full control over the municipality’s finances and implement a recovery plan as well as Section 139(7) which would see National Treasury intervention, had failed for them to resort to dissolving the municipality."
In May 2017 former mayor Daniel Buthelezi was held hostage by resident and a portion of the municipal building was set alight.
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