Eight municipalities under section 139 intervention in KwaZulu-Natal are in urgent need of concise government intervention, as they struggle to fulfil their Constitutional obligations.
This is according to the South African Local Government Association (Salga).
There are also instances where some municipalities under section 139 have regressed further, or remained dysfunctional, Salga said.
A Section 139 intervention involves the Provincial Executive Committee intervening if the municipality is unable to handle its financial affairs in terms of budgeting, expenditure and financial reporting.
Higher up State intervention is also required if a municipality is failing to provide basic services to its citizens.
The problem, according to Salga, revolves around the politics behind the curtain that is getting in the way of the daily affairs of the affected municipalities.
“Currently, this legislative tool of intervention is primarily a political intervention. It is also, unfortunately, a method for cadre deployment for administrators with political interests, while not being subjected to meaningful performance management of government administrators, which means that government support and intervention are only rhetorical.
“None of the municipalities under Section 139 intervention showed any meaningful improvement in their audit outcomes,” Salga said in a statement.
“The administrators brought by the provincial government are former administrators who have only two consistent traits about them, 1, their track record is questionable, 2, they are rotated frequently,” Salga added.
Some of the municipalities in question have been under administration since 2016 and 2017, with no signs of improvement.
Despite the municipalities roping in ‘experts’ to clean up their affairs, Salga says there has been hardly any improvement.
Regarding ineffective administrators, the eThekwini Municipality, struggling with its water service delivery, recently roped in three administrators to fix its issues.
eThekwini is not among the eight municipalities under Section 139 intervention.
This, despite the fact that there is a lack of resources and expertise within the technical labour departments, and not the administrative ones, according to sources within its numerous departments and community activists.
The three officials were said to be employed for a 12-month period on an undisclosed salary to fix the municipality’s water problems.
Sibusiso Sithole, former city manager of eThekwini Municipality; Nandi Dlamini, the former municipal manager of Harry Gwala District Municipality; and Maxwell Pawandiwa, former Ugu District Municipality Water Services Authority Executive were hired by the City.
“The purpose and scope of the team include building internal capacity and putting appropriate systems and processes in place to deliver a water and sanitation service that meets customers’ needs in line with the city’s mission,” eThekwini said.
It is unclear why the current staff employed to do their job cannot fix the problems affecting the water network.
IOL has reached out to the office of KZN Premier Nomusa Dube-Ncube for a comment on Salga’s stance regarding the eight municipalities under Section 139.
IOL