Executive mayor of the Polokwane municipality in Limpopo, John Mpe. Picture: Polokwane Review
The former mayor and the current mayor of the Polokwane local municipality in Limpopo are involved in a political tussle over the awarding of tenders.
This comes after the council made a contentious decision to cancel the awarding of all low-maintenance projects to tenderpreneurs.
Instead, the council resolved to give the job to its own human resources department, using employees from the expanded public works programme (EPWP).
According to the municipality, low-cost projects include changing of lightbulbs on streetlights, regravelling of streets, patching potholes, clearing vegetation on the sides of roads, cleaning streets, removing garbage, painting municipal infrastructure and garden services.
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The council said by using municipal employees, it would cut costs and avoid wasteful expenditure.
Mayor John Mpe said: “Our primary objective is to build a capable state and a capable municipality in line with the ANC’s decision.
“I am working round the clock to build a capable municipality – a municipality that will be able to render basic services and utilise its own internal capacity while at the same time minimising costs.”
He said his recent council sitting had resolved to use municipal funds sparingly.
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“We will continue to use businesspeople where we lack capacity. But it goes without saying that our internal staff is capable of cutting lawns, changing lightbulbs and painting municipal buildings. If we are serious about mastering the art of doing more with little, we then need to speak from the same page,” he added.
Mpe said council had drafted a new performance system which would ensure that every municipal employee earned what they had worked for.
“We want our artisans to do their work, our engineers to do the same and our technicians to do what they are employed for. The same goes to our employees in the EPWP,” he said.
But former mayor Lawrence Mapoulo did not agree.
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He has been a mayor for the Polokwane municipality, the Capricorn district municipality and was chair of the Peter Mokaba region.
He recently defected to the EFF where he is serving as the party’s provincial chair.
“We condemn in the strongest possible terms Mpe’s factional approach,” Mapoulo said.
“Given the history of the Polokwane municipality’s manipulated employment process, any insourcing must be done in the presence of all political parties and community representatives in an endeavour to avoid flooding of municipal offices with ANC factions.”
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