Pretoria - Minister of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma has asked the Mangaung Metro Council to act ruthlessly against the Free State government and national departments defying payment on their rates and taxes.
Dlamini Zuma ordered the Mangaung Metro to switch off those departments defying their responsibilities to meet their financial obligations to the council.
She was replying to opposition parties’ concerns about huge debts owed and ghost workers who allegedly increased after the November 1 local government elections.
Dlamini Zuma was in Mangaung yesterday to outline her department and National Treasury’s plans to ensure that the metro council was on the path of financial recovery since the Cabinet placed it under national administration earlier this month due to poor financial management.
Explaining their intervention, Dlamini-Zuma said the Free State province placed the council under provincial administration in December 2019, but nothing came out of it.
“We then received a letter from the provincial government on March 29, in which they raised serious problems. We presented the report to the Cabinet who then decided that we should place the council under national administration,” Dlamini Zuma said. She also seconded three officials to the Metro Council; one of them would act as a municipal manager and two would in turn be heads of departments for Planning and Waste Management.
National Treasury is expected to appoint a chief financial officer from its Pretoria office to help the municipality stabilise the finances for six months.
She also said the Cabinet would soon name their representative who will oversee the entire administration. The official would be obliged to make monthly reports to the Cabinet including sitting in mayoral committee meetings as well as three seconded officials.
Dlamini Zuma also announced that departments such as Forestry, Environment and Fisheries; Human Settlements; Water and Sanitation; Transport and other departments, would also second officials to head critical departments in the metro with the intent to turn around financial management and bring stability.
The DA councillors told the minister that the provincial government alone owed the Metro Council more than R2 billion, while undisclosed amounts were owed by national departments in the Free State.
Councillor Lucky Mongale of the Afrikan Alliance of Social Democrats (AASD) was more brazen in his attacks about the lack of payments of rates and services by government departments. Mongale told the minister the poor financial recovery was also precipitated by the non-payments, saying it was one of the major causes which led to the metro council being placed under provincial administration in December 2019.
“The non-payment is an ANC problem. There is no action against the national and provincial government departments because they are comrades. The national department plays a big brother role while the province wants to play a supervisory role over the municipality. “It’s like a rapist trying to counsel its victim,” Mongale said.
Other concerns raised included the origin of the seconded officials and whether they were vetted by the State Security Agency. One of the councillors warned the minister they did not want “criminals in the municipality”.
Other councillors asked Dlamini Zuma to ask the officials not to assume the role of politicians. In her reply, Dlamini Zuma said: “If these government departments do not want to pay, you must do what you do to citizens. You must switch them off and cut services to them.”
About the identity of the officials, the minister said all three of them were from her office, saying there was no need to vet them. “They are directly from my office and are very experienced officials. They do not commit crimes but if they do commit crime for the first time in Mangaung, they must be arrested and face the law,” she said.
Dlamini Zuma also warned politicians to stop interfering in procurement and to allow officials to do their jobs.
Pretoria News