There was a thunderous crack of the whip by the premier, Mr David Mabuza during the past week as he sounded a serious warning to all administrators, especially municipal managers whom he threatened to fire if they dare attain disclaimers in their annual financial statements.
This has long been warranted action because municipal managers are the accounting officers of all municipalities and service delivery depends heavily upon them.
Should a municipal manager be incompetent, it impedes on service delivery for that particular institution, hence today we’re experiencing numerous service delivery protests because of the shoddiness of some of these municipal managers.
Msukaligwa Local Municipality being placed under administration has long been coming as there’s absolutely nothing that municipality can account for in the 19-year-old democracy, but it has been facing the wrath of the community on numerous occasions and they have continued with their incompetency and have worsened living conditions for the community.
I was surprised by the Govan Mbeki Local Municipality also being placed under administration. All looked well out there and they also had an advantage of Sasol’s support in service delivery initiatives on a number of occasions.
They also went to an extent of sponsoring major entertainment events in their locality which enhanced tourism in the area, but now this dismal outcome. I’m very disappointed.
In fact, the premier must look into all institutions in the province to ensure that everyone delivers on their mandate.
This kind of attitude was expected from 1994 and should have continued non-stop, otherwise we wouldn’t be experiencing such rampant corruption in the corridors of governance in this country.
The next step is to conduct lifestyle audits on those officials who possess wealth that far surpasses their earnings, which is ironical, indeed.
People must start accounting for things they acquired wrongfully, unless it comes from one’s life savings, for sure, but I doubt that.
