When politicians allow factionalism and infighting to creep into the local government sphere, not only the municipality suffers but service delivery is severely compromised.
This was a view expressed by standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) chair Songezo Zibi, who led a delegation to visit some troubled water infrastructure projects in the OR Tambo district on Monday.
On Tuesday, Zibi and his entourage spent the day locked in a meeting with politicians and officials from the district authority inside the council chambers.
Between 2016 and 2021, the district municipality had been marred by infighting and factionalism, leading to a rise in parallel councils, one led by then-speaker Xolile Nkompela and another by former mayor Thokozile Sokanyile, which both claimed to be the legitimate authority in the municipality.
Subsequently, it was also reported that parliament had invoked Section 139(1)(c) of the constitution to have the municipality placed under an administrator.
Meanwhile, the district authority had been forced to operate with an unfunded budget after the National Treasury resolved to withhold its annual budget allocation due to the infighting, resulting in service delivery coming to a grinding halt.
Addressing journalists on the sidelines of the meeting with the current political and administrative leadership at OR Tambo on Tuesday, Zibi, while lauding them for turning around the situation, said there was still a long way to go.
“When politicians behave badly and use factionalism, the administration is contaminated all the way and service delivery, unfortunately, suffers,” Zibi said.
“In that environment [when there is factionalism and infighting] service delivery cannot thrive. The municipality has a lot of work to do.
“The people who did not have water during infighting still do not have access to clean water even today.
“As Scopa, we want to see things move fast so people can get water.
“We want to know what steps will be taken to ensure that happens. Our message is clear — service delivery must get to its intended recipients.”
He said OR Tambo had been characterised by infighting, particularly in the previous term which ended in 2021.
At some point, there were two municipal managers appointed by parallel councils and there were two budgets.
“The mandate of district municipalities is to deal particularly with bulk infrastructure including the provision of water and sanitation, which is really important for the quality of life of the people.”
He said Scopa had decided to visit the district authority to see if there were any improvements and also whether the improvements were happening at the required pace.
He said the AG had told the committee that, as a sign of specific improvement, it used to be difficult to reach conclusions on audit opinions so that material irregularities could be identified on its state of finances.
But OR Tambo was now at a point where at least the information was reliable, and the AG was able to make conclusions on material irregularities.
“It’s work in progress that I can tell you, we expect to get to a point where, hopefully, all the major issues have been dealt with and we are able to get clean audits in this district municipality as well as the local municipalities,” Zibi said.
Meanwhile, OR Tambo district municipal manager Basil Mase, who was appointed in the position in 2023, revealed the district authority had received a qualified audit opinion from the AG in the 2021/2022 financial year despite its many challenges.
This improved to unqualified audit opinions in the 2022/2023 and 2023/2024 financial years.
He also told Scopa members that when the district municipality had operated on an unfunded budget, a lot of projects had stalled as contractors pulled out.
But the current administration had managed to rehire them. They had also managed to reduce the unauthorised, irregular, wasteful and fruitless expenditure from a whopping R1.8bn to just under R970m as at end-June 2024.
The irregular spending stemmed from the time of the previous council and not under the current administration.
It was also reported that the district municipality was the subject of an SIU investigation following the signing of a proclamation by President Cyril Ramaphosa looking into irregularities in some of the projects it was undertaking.
The was the second proclamation signed by Ramaphosa to have the district municipality investigated for allegations of fraud and corruption.
Mase said they were complying with the investigations.
Zibi, however, said that ideally it would be good if municipalities and government departments were able to recoup money from those implicated in stealing public money without relying on prosecutions as many investigations took long to complete.
Daily Dispatch
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