EFF, DA call for Polokwane mayor’s removal

The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and the Democratic Alliance (DA) are both calling for the immediate removal of mayor of the biggest and richest municipal council in Limpopo, Polokwane municipality mayor Thembi Nkadimeng.

Apart from being the mayor of the province’s economic hub and capital, Nkadimeng is president of the South African Local Government Association (Salga), which oversees the day-to-day functioning of municipalities in Limpopo.

The two main opposition parties in the Limpopo Legislature, claimed Nkadimeng’s faults included failing to produce a good audit outcome over four consecutive financial years. Her woes started after auditor-general (AG) Tsakani Maluleke presented yet another qualified audit opinion, for the fourth time.

EFF provincial chairperson Jossey Buthane said: “The EFF in Limpopo calls for the ANC to remove the executive mayor of Polokwane municipality, Thembi Nkadimeng.

“Our call is precipitated by the fact that her municipality has once again recorded a qualified audit opinion from the AG.

“What is more worrying is that this very poor audit comes with matters of emphasis not being attended to in all reports.”

According to Buthane, the municipality’s failure to prepare financial statements in line with section 122(A) of the Municipal Finance Management Act (MFMA) led to the poor audit opinion. Buthane added that political polarisation, nepotism and unauthorised expenditure were the order of the day in the municipality.

The DA echoed the EFF’s call for Nkadimeng and her municipal manager to be harshly dealt with.

DA councillor Jacques Joubert said some of the factors that resulted in the poor audit outcome were that officials’ relatives had business interests with the municipality and, in most cases, they failed to disclose their business interests.

“Other problems that led to poor performance are the fact that no investigations were done to determine if any person was liable for the unauthorised and irregular expenditure and lack of applying consequence management against officials whose hands were found in the cookie jar,” said Joubert.

Ironically, last week Salga called for consequence management to be delivered to municipal managers and chief financial officer whose municipalities recorded poor audit outcomes.

“For audits which were finalised by the general report cut-off date, there is a net improvement in audit to 30 municipalities with better audit outcomes compared to the prior year.

“Among them is Limpopo, with eight municipalities and the Eastern Cape with 6 municipalities,” it said.

Polokwane was not among the improved municipalities.

But municipal spokesperson Thipa Selala said: “The executive mayor and the municipal manager have both been very hands on with the audit process.

“It is through their leadership that the municipality has been able to address many of the recurring audit issues that the institution was unable to deal with over the years,” said Selala.

“Moreover, we have not in the past had a head of the administration whose service continued up to year five. This demonstrates leadership provided in the organisation. We believe the City of Polokwane is in a good position to attain a clean audit in the future.”

– news@citizen.co.za.