KwaZulu-Natal Premier Nomusa Dube-Ncube has deployed ministerial representatives to problematic municipalities in the province following poor audit outcomes for many of those local government structures.
Dube-Ncube is on a mission to straighten out failing municipalities and has warned that her office will no longer be “soft” or “intimidated” by municipal officials “who think the municipalities belong to them or belong to their families”.
Following a meeting with the guilty municipalities on Tuesday, Dube-Ncube said ministerial representatives would implement consequence management resulting from Section 106 investigations within three months of completion of their reports.
In turn, she also warned that the performance of the ministerial representatives will be assessed by the cooperative governance and traditional affairs (Cogta) member of the executive council (MEC) within two months, and their appointments will be terminated if they were found under-performing in their duties.
The premier, joined by Cogta MEC, Bongiwe Sithole-Moloi, laid down the law for these municipalities in a stern meeting in Durban on Tuesday.
Presently, there are eight municipalities under intervention which are Msunduzi, Mpofana, Inkosi Langalibalele, Mtubatuba, Abaqulusi Local Municipality, uThukela, uMzinyathi, and uMkhanyakude District Municipality.
Among these municipalities are consistently poor audit outcomes as identified by the Auditor-General, the inadequate utilisation of the Municipal Infrastructure Grant (MIG) and other grants from provincial and national treasury, financial difficulties, maladministration, approval of unfunded budgets and political instability.
“When local government fails, all government fails, because local government is the touchstone of service delivery,” Dube-Ncube said.
“We cannot allow illegal and unconstitutional decisions to bar interventions in municipalities by the province on grounds which have little to do with service delivery to the people of KwaZulu-Natal.”
IOL