The Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Gogta), Thembisile Nkadimeng, told the media she is visiting all the dysfunctional municipalities in the country.
The Govan Mbeki Municipality and Lekwa (Standerton) are among these 66 dysfunctional municipalities.
The mayors and representatives of GMM and Lekwa, along with four other municipalities in Mpumalanga, were summoned to the Lillian Ngoyi Centre in Secunda on September 14, where the minister addressed them.
The other four municipalities are Msukaligwa (Ermelo), Thaba Chweu (Mashishing/ Lydenburg), Dr JS Moroka (Siyabuswa) and Dipaliseng (Balfour).
Nkadimeng said assessments, based on political, governance, administration, financial management, service delivery and local economic development, identified the dysfunctional municipalities.
“We identified that the dysfunctional municipalities. We cannot do an assessment and say our municipalities are not performing to their best and then keep quiet. We are here to look in depth at their challenges.
“We have councils that do not hold council meetings.”
According to her, instability causes non-performance because the council is not functioning. Nkadimeng said GMM is showing an improvement in water provision.
However, they still face load-shedding and load-reduction because they exceed the notified maximum demand, and the municipality is in huge debt to Eskom.
“This municipality has already applied for a rebate to the National Treasury, and it was approved. As the national government, we are bringing infrastructure development support to all these dysfunctional municipalities.”
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Nkadimeng said the national government has taken over the infrastructure development in some of these municipalities and will run certain municipal projects on their behalf or jointly with them to speed up service delivery.
“We do not intend to take their functions away but to help them develop their capacity, particularly on planning.”
Nkadimeng pointed out instances where the national treasury takes back money not spent, although the roads in that municipality are in poor condition.
“That is where we need acceleration and spend that money not spent by these municipalities. We are trying to create that balance to ensure we assist them,” said Nkadimeng.
Nkadimeng said that compared to other municipalities she has visited in other provinces, GMM has done a lot.
She said Sasol supports the GMM by doing some projects and that there are partnerships between the company and the municipality.
Nkadimeng said none of the six municipalities said anything about the green economy that BRICS has just spoken about, such as the possibility of gas use.
“The municipalities’ plans for local economic development must respond to the direction of the country and implement Small and Medium Enterprises (SMMEs).”
