Challenges faced by municipalities will come to the fore when the Deputy Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta), Andries Nel, visits Mahikeng today.
The Deputy Minister’s visit will include meetings with business and the North West University, among others.
Cabinet resolved to invoke section 100 (1) in that province and established an Inter-Ministerial Task Team constituted of several Ministers to assess the challenges facing the province.
“The visit by Cogta is also informed by engagements with MECs responsible for Local Government and Traditional Affairs in March 2018, whereby it was agreed that provinces must focus on municipalities categorised as financially distressed/dysfunctional,” Cogta said in a statement.
The ministry said these are municipalities that are struggling to deliver services to their communities due to governance and financial systems collapsing.
“The priority areas agreed upon with the MECs are in finance, governance and service delivery mandates undertaken by the municipalities, which are showing a dysfunctional state. The national Cogta will work with the provincial government to provide support aimed at effecting the turnaround of the ailing municipalities.”
Meanwhile, Cogta Minister Zweli Mkhize is expected to meet with council at the Mamusa Local Municipality Offices in Schweizer Reneke on Friday.
Their meeting is scheduled to get underway at 9am.
The support to municipalities is clustered into three focus areas namely governance and administration, which focuses on audit outcomes; unauthorised, irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure.
The second area is on service delivery and infrastructure, and revolves around delivery and implementation management. The third area of support is financial management, focusing on budget management and cash flow controls, among others.
Government has identified 12 priority municipalities in the province that require assistance. The municipalities include Ditsobotla, Mamusa and Tswaing, among others. – SAnews.gov.za
