By Thys Khiba
Bloemfontein – The Free State Economic Freedom Fighters says that all the Free State municipalities which are under administration in terms of section 139 of the constitution are the Center of maladministration and looting public purse.
The Free State Economic Freedom Fighters continued to say that they are horrified by the state of all the municipalities in Free State.
“Our observation is that all municipalities which are under administration in terms of section 139 of the constitution and those where municipal managers have been seconded unlawfully ,did not only track their feet to give auditors general office necessary documentation to formulate an audit opinion ,but are at the center of maladministration and looting public purse,” said EFF Provincial Secretary Bosanku Msimanga.
As a member of the opposition party responsible for local governance, Msimanga says that the Free State MEC for Cogta failed to upon the issue of one of the administrators in Mafube, whom after his appointment as Municipal Manager was accused of paying himself salary which is more than city managers at the metro level.
“MEC promised to act ,to this date is still a work in progress no consequences ,money has not been recovered. Then a deployee is simply requested to resign.”
With his observations, Msimanga says that Metsimaholo Local Municipality is struggling to pay their Eskom debt and this is new to this municipality. The EFF Provincial Secretary states that the government Financial year 2020/2021, Metsimaholo has been allocated money to spend on infrastructure but due to incompetent administrators from the province about 80million rand remain unspent.
“National Treasury and department of water and sanitation are now demanding repayment of the allocation since it has not been spent.”
Msimanga went to accuse the African National Congress and South African Communist Party of wanting to hire their members as general workers at the municipality.
“On the same breadth the team sent to Mangaung by cogta is engaging in a process of writing off provincial departments debts, debts that are recoverable, while subjecting ordinary residents to electricity cuts as a measure of recovering debt.”
Msimanga says that the MEC for Cogta should develop a courage to tell his ‘peers’ at the provincial level starting with his department to pay services, non-payment of services is contributing to downgrading Mangaung.
“EFF requested intervention of the MEC Cogta to subject Matjhabeng local municipality to section 106, due to grand scale looting happening there, is almost a year we are still awaiting the outcome of investigations. our firm believe is that the outcome will remain unknown in order to save his comrades from facing accountability.”
During his Budget Vote of 2021/2022, the MEC for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta), Thembeni Nxangisa says that as they’ll be going into elections, protests for service delivery are expected to increase, as either individuals or political formations will be positioning themselves for elections.
Nxangisa indicates that the capacity of ANC-led municipalities in Free State to collect revenue needs to be improved. Cogta MEC says that the community needs to be encouraged to pay their debts to the municipalities.
“The municipalities have experienced challenges of capacity in terms of the human resources. The vacancy lists at the municipalities are very high, there are sometimes no consequences management processes in place and there is also political infighting that contributes to the collapse of service delivery in some situations,” said MEC for Cogta, Thembeni Nxangisa.