Lekwa Municipality faces many challenges, the latter the buzz word, an important-sounding usually technical word or phrase often of little meaning used chiefly to impress laymen.
That comes from the Merriam-Webster dictionary. Mr Mandla Msibi, MEC of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA), used other words as well in the daily report from the national council of provinces, dated 27 October.
According to the document, Lekwa has been marred by violent protests over the past three years due to the poor service delivery record and has been plagued by the scourge of sewer spillages.
The Waste Water Treatment Works is not functional, pumps have collapsed, refuse collection is insufficient and the deteriorating situation in Lekwa was assessed. Poor working relations in council meetings furthermore, impacted negatively on the municipality’s functionality.
Council is struggling, Lekwa is unable to honour its agreed repayment plan with Eskom, vacant posts have affected the stability of the administration and instability is admitted to.
The document provided an overview of challenges, based on the five pillars of government’s Back to Basics-programme.
Pillar 1 is putting people first, pillar 2 is basic service delivery, pillar 3 is good governance and administration, pillar 4 is sound financial management and the last is institutional capacity and administrative capability.
The mayor, Mr Linda Dhlamini, said in his brief that all the planned projects intended for water and sanitation have not come to fruition, including electricity and the escalating Eskom-debt. The debt stands at R1,1-billion, an increase from R310 333-million from December 2018, with monthly interest accruing at R10,1-million.
Mr Dhlamini said the municipality does not have a local economic development or public participation strategy, has not yet processed reports required in terms of Section 106 of the Municipal Systems Act and did not submit an action plan to CoGTA.
He recommended inter alia that a prepaid electricity meter system be introduced and installed, security be ensured in areas where vandalism occur and the local economic development forum be launched on 17 November.
Mr Msibi recommended inter alia that the municipality accelerates its financial recovery plan, submits regular reports to provincial treasury and staff members be assessed for performance review.
The Standerton Advertiser published the current state of affairs in its edition last week and for the uninitiated, the status quo remains with one important difference.
Section 139 1 (b) of the Constitution of South Africa came into effect, making provincial intervention mandatory.
