Limpopo’s creaking municipalities have premier, AG at wits’ end

Limpopo Premier Stan Mathabatha and the Auditor-General (AG) Kimi Makwetu are at their wits’ end due to the fact that nearly half of the province’s 27 district and local municipalities have no full-time municipal managers.

This comes against the backdrop of the news that none of the municipalities in the province got a clean audit opinion from the AG last year.

Mathabatha and Makwetu identified a shortage of experienced municipal managers and chief financial officers (CFOs) as among the serious problems faced by municipalities.

Makwetu also identified failure by councils to make managers accountable as a problem.

Several municipalities have since embarked on a clean-up process which included suspending and dismissing managers and CFOs over wrongdoings. Those suspended or fired have either contravened the Municipal Finance Management Act, administration or local governance or legislation policies.

Yesterday the office of MEC for cooperative governance, Basikopo Makamu, said at least six municipal managers in the province had been fired. In other case, some managers were on suspension pending investigations.

Most recently Mopani district municipality manager Republic Momakedi had resigned for personal reasons. But his detractors claimed he resigned because he transgressed certain Municipal Finance Management Act (MFMA) policies during the appointment of service providers for tenders.

In Sekhukhune district municipality, manager Nora Maseko was suspended amid allegations of not following procedures in the procurement of tenders amounting to millions of rands.

In the Vhembe district municipality, the council opted for a golden handshake with former manager Reuben Rambado after he contravened the MFMA policies by investing R300 million into the collapsed VBS Mutual Bank against the advice of the National Treasury. The municipality has been run by an acting manager for more than 10 months now.

In Mogalakwena, the municipality received a disclaimer for the second time in two consecutive years. The dismal performance saw the council becoming second-last, with a poor audit outcome, out of the country’s 257 municipalities.

Last week parliament’s portfolio committee on cooperative governance headed by Faith Muthambi heard that a municipal manager from Mogalakwena was given a three-month study leave “because she was a stumbling block in the awarding of tenders to pals and close family members”.

These statements were, however, denied by the municipality’s political management team which said the study leave was not approved.

Yesterday two section 57 managers and one senior politician claimed the increasing number of suspensions and dismissals of managers was because a new crop of leaders, elected before and after the Limpopo provincial elective conference in 2017, wanted to position their own political cronies as accounting officers.

For more news your way, download The Citizen’s app for iOS and Android.