Nomusa Dube. Photo: Supplied Nomusa Dube. Photo: Supplied
KwaZulu-Natal - Yet another KwaZulu-Natal municipality has been placed under administration, with the mayor of the Mtubatuba municipality forced to relinquish all powers and responsibilities to the provincial executive council.
The decision by the KZN government was taken after earlier efforts failed to halt the administrative collapse of the northern Zululand municipality.
Co-operative governance MEC Nomusa Dube said governance in the municipality, which was run by an ANC-NFP coalition, had deteriorated to such an extent that the operations of the municipality had almost ceased.
Cash flow was in crisis and the municipality had neglected to pay creditors, and was now facing a R1.4-million lawsuit from a security company as a result of the cancellation of a contract.
Mtubatuba is the fifth municipality in the province to be placed under administration, after Indaka, Msunduzi, Okhahlamba and Umhlabuyalingana. The four were placed under provincial administration in November 2009 after they were identified as being in financial ruins.
Three of the municipalities have since recovered, and are no longer under administration; however, Dube said that Indaka would remain under provincial control because it had “perpetually continued to be a problem child”.
Last month she gave the largely rural Indaka municipality, to the east of Ladysmith, an ultimatum to get its house in order or face being dissolved.
Dube said the administration meltdown in the Mtubatuba municipality had been “internally orchestrated” and various support interventions aimed at preventing the collapse had failed.
“The operations of the municipality have almost ground to a halt. The municipality is bedevilled by internal strife, which is clearly compromising the delivery of services to communities,” she said.
Dube accused IFP and NFP councillors of interfering in the filling of critical posts, and a situation had arisen in which the council was unable to recruit senior managers as recommended by the intervention team.
This contravened legislation which sought to “depoliticise and professionalise the appointment of senior managers in municipalities”, she said.
NFP national secretary-general Professor Nhlanhla Khubisa said he was shocked by the move, adding that the party would engage with Dube and the ANC.
Khubisa said reports to the party from their councillors suggested the situation was improving in the municipality.
“We knew the department [of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs] had sent a skilled and experienced team who were working closely with the municipality,” he said.
“We were thinking there was no mayhem.”
Dube said a financial administrator had been appointed when difficulties facing the municipality had first been identified, but councillors had prevented progress from being made, in contravention of the Local Government: Systems Act of 2000.
“This was evident in the manner in which certain councillors disrupted council meetings by staging walkouts, which further paralysed the functioning of the Mtubatuba municipality,” she said.
The DA has welcomed Dube’s intervention, urging her to ensure municipal officials implicated in wrongdoing were brought to book.
The party’s George Mari said infighting in hung KZN municipalities appeared to be on the increase, at the expense of service delivery. He cited recent cases in Nkandla and Umtshezi, where IFP and NFP councillors voted out the ANCelected mayor.
Daily News