Pretoria - Ward committees and all their activities in the City of Tshwane will immediately cease to exist.
This follows a Constitutional Court judgment dismissing the city’s application for leave to appeal against a high court order declaring ward committees null and void.
In September, the Supreme Court of Appeal also dismissed the application, saying an appeal “bears no prospects of success”.
Before that, Judge Dawie Fourie, in the high court in Pretoria, had ruled the ward committees elections of 2012 were held without a valid policy framework, declaring them null and void.
Tshwane mayoral spokesman Blessing Manale said the city respected the Constitutional Court ruling and would immediately implement it by ensuring that the ward committee system and all its activities cease to exist.
Upon the promulgation of the envisaged approved ward committee by-law, the city will commence with elections, Manale said.
Speaker of the council Morakane Mosupyoe-Letsholo thanked ward committee members who sacrificed their time by voluntarily partnering with the city to pursue its developmental agenda.
The DA, which had challenged the ward committees in court, said it would initiate procedures to recover the unauthorised expenditure from Mosupyoe-Letsholo, city manager Jason Ngobeni and executive mayor Kgosientso Ramokgopa for the costs incurred in the running of ward committees.
Each of the 10 members of ward committees receive a R1 000 stipend at the conclusion of a monthly meeting.
Backdated to 2012 when the ward committees were elected, about R47 million was spent in direct disbursements, including the cost of the elections, DA councillor Lex Middelberg said.
This sum did not include the indirect costs of an entire department created in the office of the Speaker to manage the ward committees.
In a letter to Auditor-General Kimi Makwetu, Middelberg - on behalf of the DA - requested the inclusion of unauthorised expenditure incurred on account of ward committees in the audit report to be tabled in the council in January.
Middelberg said the auditor-general had previously declined to comment on the issue because of the pending court challenge.
The DA now wanted Makwetu to consider the matter as part of his current audit and to express an opinion in the report to be presented to the council in January.
Middelburg said the Speaker and the executive mayor should reasonably have foreseen the wasteful expenditure.
But Manale said the call for the leaders to repay the money was tantamount to suggesting the city and service delivery did not benefit from the services and hard work of the ward committees during their tenure.
“This call is aimed at intimidating the city from challenging and defending any matter in the future and to allow the courts to be the preserve of the rich as has been the privilege of the DA and its allies in the past,” he said.
To correct the legal interpretation of the ward committee by-law, the council reviewed it for community consultation and comments at its September meeting, Manale said. The process commenced in October and would end on November 30.
Thereafter, a report will be submitted to the council at its envisaged special meeting next month to commence with the process of promulgation, he said.
Pretoria News