Tshwane must improve relationship with residents, says Muthambi

The City of Tshwane must improve its relationship with residents to ensure problems are addressed early, a government department has said.

“Effective stakeholder relations are central to efficiency of a municipality,” said Cogta portfolio committee chairperson Faith Muthambi.

However, she said it was concerned that the metro’s relationship with stakeholders were “deficient”.
This situation was made worse by “dysfunctional ward committees, following the dissolution of this critical pillar of consultative government”.

This comes as residents faced issues with electricity, water, property, transport, and waste collection, among other problems in their community, without anyone to report them to since the council’s dissolving.

Muthambi said her committee interacted with stakeholders within the municipality to hear their first-hand experiences of service delivery within the metro.

“The unintended consequence of ineffective stakeholder relations is disgruntled communities who litigate against the municipality, diverting limited resources from essential service delivery towards legal costs. Furthermore, service delivery protests could be reduced with effective stakeholder engagement,” said Muthambi.

She said the committee appreciated church leaders’ commitment to work with the metro in fostering positive relations with communities and dealing with residents’ needs.

The committee encouraged the metro to take advantage of churches’ willingness to collaborate with it for the benefit of residents.

She said the committee also resolved to interact with traditional leaders to strengthen relations and address problems.

This comes as the metro council by-elections were halted until the Constitutional Court and Supreme Court of Appeals handed down their judgments.

The electoral commission recently said it could not proceed with the by-elections until the metro council dissolution matter was decided by the courts.

On 4 May, the Electoral Court granted the postponement of the by-elections for Tshwane metropolitan beyond 90 days but not beyond 120 days.

Initially, the postponement was said to be because of the Covid-19 outbreak; however, passing 120 days saw the postponement due to the Tshwane metro’s legal woes.

The commission said it was well prepared to conduct the by-elections in Tshwane, in readiness for a court decision that may be in favour of the provincial government on its move placing the metro under administration.

“If the Constitutional Court finds in favour of Premier David Makhura and upholds the appeal, it would then mean the decision of the Gauteng Executive Council remains valid and binding. The municipal-wide by-elections in Tshwane would then have to proceed.”

However, if the Constitutional Court dismissed the appeal to the High Court’s ruling on council dissolution being unlawful, no elections would take place as councillors would be back in council.

This article first appeared on Rekord and was republished with permission.

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