Pretoria - Executive mayor of Madibeng Municipality, Douglas Maimane, said he was unaware the City of Tshwane had approached the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, in a bid to attach the municipality’s bank account for failing to settle its debt of R258 million for bulk water supply.
This was said by the mayoral chief of staff, Senzo Mgqongolo, who responded to claims municipal councillors were taken by surprise yesterday Tshwane metro was given a go-ahead to attach the municipality’s account.
Mgqongolo said: “The mayor has been sitting on this matter of the City of Tshwane but he has not really been assisted from the administration side to attend to this matter, including the fact that we were not aware that the matter was sat down in court.”
He said the acting city manager did not brief the mayor about the court case, but dismissed claims that the situation was owing to a sour relationship between the two.
“I would not say that there is a sour relationship between the two. Madibeng Municipality has been a municipality where many things are not attended to for quite some time. Now in this administration we have the executive mayor who is very hands-on in matters, including consequence management,” he said.
He said according to the court order the municipality must pay the City more than R200 million within seven days, adding that “the attachment of a bank account could be as a result of the municipality’s failure to respond to the City of Tshwane”.
According to him, Madibeng entered into an agreement with Tshwane to pay its debt almost two years ago when the municipality was under administration.
He conceded the debt was not serviced according to the agreement because the municipality was financially challenged.
“Most of the communities which are serviced by the municipality with water supply don’t pay for services,” he said.
Since yesterday, he said, the municipality had taken a different approach, which included having ongoing engagement with the City.
Part of the engagement would include that the provision of services to communities was not interrupted.
“We need to find a way to service the debt of Tshwane, but not only limited to Tshwane but other creditors as well,” he said.
Councillor for Save Madibeng activist movement, Sydney Monnakgotla, said he was one of the councillors who learnt from the media about Tshwane’s court application to attach municipal accounts.
“There has never been a report presented in council about the matter. Our understanding as council is that as soon as our municipality received the application by the City of Tshwane they could have called a special council to resolve the matter and find a way forward.
“We were also surprised that the application was not opposed. We know that there is an arrangement in place and our expectation was that our municipality was complying with that.”
Mayor Randall Williams said the attachment of the bank account “will enable the City to recoup the funds that we are owed, and this should assist the City to pay its creditors, like Rand Water, from which the City gets its bulk water supply”.
“Madibeng Local Municipality now owes the City R258 million for its unpaid bulk water account. In August 2021, the two municipalities entered into a payment arrangement in terms of which Madibeng Local Municipality would settle its account in instalments over a specific payment period, but it failed to honour its commitment,” he said.
Pretoria News