
Things continue to get worse at one of Mpumalanga’s most badly-run municipality.
The DA has asked co-operative governance MEC Busi Shiba to immediately find and appoint an administrator to run the Govan Mbeki municipality in Secunda.
This is because the systems of governance continue to fall apart at the municipality.
From June 2020 to January 2022, the debt owed to Eskom by the municipality ballooned from R2 billion to R2.7 billion.
By June 2018, the municipality owed Eskom around R700 million which led to power cuts and the money has steadily increased to R2.7 billion in 2022.
“This particular municipality also has a serious sewer network problem,” the DA’s Trudie Grovè-Morgan said.
Community members have been crying to officials that they now want to buy their electricity directly from Eskom and not from the municipality.
In October 2018, the Govan Mbeki was one of the 5 municipalities that Premier Refilwe Mtshweni-Tsipane announced would be put under financial rescue.
But months later the Premier backtracked on the financial recovery plan, saying she was now opting for fresh strategies to turn things around at the collapsing municipality.
“The financial crisis continues to deepen. We have now written to CoGTA MEC Busi Shiba asking her to immediately appoint an administrator,” Grovè-Morgan said.
“We want the MEC to waste no time, but to urgently place this municipality under administration before their financial and service delivery crisis continues to deepen to the point of no return,” she said.
(edited by ZK)
Send tip-offs to editor@013.co.za