Parliament, Wednesday, 20 November 2024 – The Portfolio Committee on Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs today expressed concern about the state of governance and financial management in Merafong Local Municipality.
The committee is on a week-long oversight visit to Gauteng to assess the state of municipalities.
On Tuesday, the committee met with the leadership of Merafong municipality. It noted that the municipality is plagued by water supply and sanitation challenges and has huge governance and financial management issues, with several disclaimers and adverse audit outcomes from the Office of the Auditor-General (AG). Among the financial woes is declining revenue. There are also challenges with community dissatisfaction, with some residents resorting to the courts with complaints about the municipality.
Committee Chairperson Dr Zwele Mkhize said that the committee visited the municipality, “to show the people of Merafong that the committee heard their pleas, their concerns and have received reports on some of the challenges they are experiencing”. “Of course, Parliament is the right place for them to go when they have difficulties in service delivery,” said the Chairperson, “So we conducted this oversight visit by meeting up with the leadership to discuss the issues of water, in particular.” He said that there are situations where Rand Water has reportedly closed off the water supply because of the municipality’s inability to pay its debts.
The committee noted that many municipal governance issues are around non-compliance with legislation. The committee believes that it is important to address this issue so that the municipality deals with the poor audit outcomes from the past. “We, therefore, indicated that it is important for the municipality to improve governance and strengthen areas of compliance,” said the Chairperson. “It is also important for the municipality to focus on consequence management to correct all the wrongs identified by the AG, in particular, correcting irregular, unauthorised and wasteful expenditures. Consequence management, the committee believes, needs proper, functioning disciplinary boards and ensuring that disciplinary processes are appropriately managed.”
The committee also noted that the municipality is not billing and collecting from all who should pay, so it cannot meet its monthly expenditure requirements. The committee urged the municipality to strengthen its credit management policies and correct procurement issues. The committee stated that it is important for the municipality to discuss municipal infrastructure expansion and adopt a recovery plan to ensure there is infrastructure for water, electricity and sanitation services to provide adequate services to communities.
Another point of discussion was the municipality’s debt. The committee heard that the municipality owes Rand Water about R1 billion, and Eskom is owed about R5 billion, of which R2.2 billion is the outstanding debt of mining companies. Another challenge is the dolomitic land profile of the area, which requires a proper strategy to deal with major sinkholes the municipality must deal with.
The committee also urged the municipality to provide various reports on investigations into corruption, irregularities, maladministration, and other issues the community has raised. The committee also discouraged the municipality from undertaking a trip to Morocco, which it believes could create a conflict of interest between the councillors and the municipality because some people involved are service providers or potential service providers.
The Chairperson said the committee would have to return to check on the progress of all the matters that it raised. “Ultimately, distressed and dysfunctional municipalities require support from across all spheres of government – national, provincial, and local – as well as Parliament, to ensure accountability, consequence management, and recovery of normal governance.
Today, the committee is visiting the Tshwane Metro to meet with municipal leadership and other stakeholders on challenges in the metro.
ISSUED BY THE PARLIAMENTARY COMMUNICATION SERVICES ON BEHALF OF THE CHAIRPERSON OF THE PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE ON COOPERATIVE GOVERNANCE AND TRADITIONAL AFFAIRS, DR ZWELI MKHIZE.
For media enquiries or interviews with the Chairperson, please contact:
Name: Alicestine October (Ms)
Cell: 083 665 4345
E-mail: aoctober@parliament.gov.za
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