Demand for action
AN ESTIMATED 800 residents of Enoch Mgijima Local Municipality (EMLM) took to the streets of the Komani CBD on Wednesday to protest against the administration of the embattled local authority.
They marched from the western entrance of the town to the town hall to hand over a petition to mayor Sisisi Tolashe.
The march was led by DA MP and EMLM constituency leader Terry Stander, who said while the march was organised by the party, it was an apolitical event.
Stander said, “The purpose is to provide an opportunity for community members to raise their voices against the injustice of having a municipal administration that is abusing taxpayers’ money and failing to provide services.
“The auditor-general found more than R1-billion in unauthorised, irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure in their latest financial report. EMLM tried to write that off in March. In terms of section 32 of the Municipal Finance Systems Act, they are legally obliged to investigate.”
Stander said EMLM was also supposed to make attempts to recover the money, but there had been no investigation or recovery attempts and no-one was being held accountable for the expenditure.
This, she said, was an example of a lack of consequence management which allowed fraud and corruption to run rampant.
“While there is irregular expenditure, the roads, water, electricity and infrastructure have collapsed. I spoke to a business owner who claims that he is losing R2-million a day due to outages.”
Stander said more than a thousand people signed the petition handed over to Tolashe.
The petition’s demands include that the mayor, mayoral committee and the municipal manager resign, that a forensic audit for the 2008 to 2018 financial years take place, that a financial recovery plan is done, including placing EMLM under provincial administration and that EMLM comply with section 32 of the MFMA to recover any irregular, unauthorised, fruitless and wasteful expenditure.
The petition also lists that past and present municipal officials and councillors be investigated and criminal charges laid if found to be applicable and that EMLM provide clean governance and sustainable service delivery.
Tolashe received the petition, but could not confirm a time frame for a response.
“This was a peaceful march by concerned citizens for their municipality. There is no unrest – their peaceful march is allowed because we belong to a democratic South Africa.
“We will look at the petition and we will find ways to respond.”
She said the auction had been as a result of inherited debt from Nkwanca Municipality and that action was being taken. The municipality and contractor could not agree on what amount should be paid and the cooperative governance and traditional affairs (Cogta) department had instructed that an investigation be done.
“That investigation indicated that those people were not owed, because there was a new amalgamation. Two reports say we do not owe those people money and we went to court, but unfortunately we had to pay.”
The municipality was continuing to deal with the matter.
On the call for the EMLM to be dissolved, she said the council had not appointed itself.
“This municipality was established according to the laws that governed the demarcation plus all the legal frameworks that talk to the establishment of local authorities.”
She would be discussing the memorandum with the council.
Among those involved in the protest, was Helen Ferreira, 72, from Top Town who said she had lived in Komani her whole life and her heart was sore that Komani was filthy and had a lack of infrastructure.
Thobani Tiwane, 29, who lives in Mlungisi, said poor service delivery, including a lack of water, electricity, roads with potholes and broken street lights, were among his concerns.
Darryl Westran, 45, from Central said he marched due to the maladministration of the town which affected his business. He said the electricity outages had cost him R600 a day for petrol for his generator.
‘No attempt has been made to recover the money or give an explanation’