Pretoria – The Mpumalanga provincial government will dispatch a team to beef up the administration at the Thaba Chweu Municipality, which is experiencing serious problems.
The decision for such an intervention was announced on Wednesday at a special premier’s co-ordinating forum, which took place in Nelspruit.
The municipality will not be placed under administration; however, the provincial government will give dedicated support by dispatching a team of experts that will work closely with officials from the council.
Yesterday’s meeting focused on the progress made by the municipalities in implementing their plans and assessing their performance with regards to expenditure.
It transpired during the meeting that Thaba Chweu Municipality had serious administrative and financial problems, as it cannot implement its projects.
The municipality lacks capacity on financial management as it had no Chief Financial Officer, and the current Municipal Manager was in an acting capacity.
Due to the seriousness of the lack of funds, the municipality was now shockingly utilising its infrastructure grants to pay salaries.
Such funds are not to be utilised for anything else but should be ring-fenced and be used solely for the public infrastructure projects. The municipality further owes Eskom R147 million for electricity, which makes the financial situation worse.
Mpumalanga Premier David Mabuza has asked the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Provincial Treasury and Ehlanzeni District Municipality to intervene urgently, citing that the municipality’s problems were “very serious”.
“We need to establish a mechanism and find a solution which will help us to quickly rescue the municipality. Indeed, the financial situation of the municipality is on the rocks.
“The main problem for many municipalities in our province is this matter of selling electricity. There are municipalities that we must persuade to stop selling electricity because they do not have the capacity. Instead, this creates even more financial problems for them,” Mabuza said.
Mpumalanga municipalities in total owe Eskom R488 million for electricity.
Mabuza explained that electricity theft was one of the problems faced by the municipalities and this activity should be left to Eskom to do it on its own.
Mabuza said dedicated support should be given to Thaba Chweu Municipality urgently in order for communities to be able to access government services.
Meanwhile, 21 municipal managers in the province have committed themselves to not getting disclaimers and that they should be released from duty with immediate effect should it happen that they get disclaimers. – SAnews.gov.za
