Gilbert Motseo
LIMPOPO – THE Greater Tubatse Municipality in Burgersfort is turning a good story into an ugly one, according to the National Council of Provinces (NCOP), which visited the municipality’s chambers recently.
The NCOP is constitutionally mandated to ensure that provincial interests are taken into account in the national sphere of government. It also plays a unique role in the promotion of the principles of cooperative government and intergovernmental relations.
The NCOP team that visited the Greater Tubatse area grilled mayor Ralepane Mamekoa and his team during its visit.
“Mayor, your report does not have a good story to tell,” the representative from parliament, Lesailane Mampuru told Mamekoa.
The visitors were also disappointed to see only 19 of the 62 councillors present at the meeting.
“It shows that the councillors don’t care about the plight of their communities; we are here to discuss issues affecting their wards but they are nowhere to be found,” Mampuru said.
The NCOP team reiterated that there was no excuse for failure to provide services to the people of Tubatse.
“Twenty-one years after democracy, people are still suffering, Mamekoa, we are fully resourced, no excuses, your municipality is turning a good story into an ugly one,” the NCOP team said.
In his attempt to defend the municipality, the mayor highlighted that Tubatse was a mountainous area and therefore it was costly to provide services to the people.
“Areas like Mafarafara are mountainous; we need a lot of funds to ensure they get proper services. We also have a low number of people who went to tertiary institutions, our statistics reveal that only 6% went.”
Mamekoa put the blame on mining companies in the area as he claimed they were not addressing the community’s needs such as roads and infrastructure in their social-labour plans. “We are engaging mining companies in terms of skills development; hopefully this will help in resolving our crisis.”
The mayor revealed that the municipality also struggled to perform because it had had a period of more than a year without a permanent municipal manager or a chief financial officer.
The NCOP team advised the mayor to ensure there were no factions in the municipality. It also advised the new municipal manager, Johannes Mohlala, to prepare himself thoroughly when legislature visited his municipality.
