Finance minister Enoch Godongwana has chastised councillors of the dysfunctional Mangaung metro, calling on them to put citizen’s interests first, warning that failure to comply with fiduciary responsibilities is unacceptable.
Mangaung, one of SA’s eight metros, has failed on multiple fronts and was placed under provincial administration in December 2019 after it was unable to implement a financial recovery plan (FRP) from the previous year.
Political infighting dating back to suspended ANC secretary-general, long-time provincial chair and erstwhile Free State premier Ace Magashule and a “lack of leadership” are at the heart of the failures of the administration to implement its recovery plan from 2019. Mangaung is one of two metros in which the ANC won by a majority vote in 2021’s local government elections. It was downgraded to junk status by ratings agency Moody’s in 2019.
In April, the embattled Mangaung became the first metro to be taken over by the national government after governance failures and political infighting led to a further deterioration of service delivery.
Speaking during an event to introduce the national cabinet representative and technical support team for the metro on Friday, Godongwana said it saddened him that despite the national government’s intervention in the metro, there is “no visible improvement can be found in your financial and service delivery performance”.
“It is this situation that has necessitated that a more severe model of intervention is put in place, in order to protect the communities and people of Mangaung and to improve financial and service delivery performance in the municipality,” the finance minister said.
“This is among the first metropolitan municipality to experience this severe level of financial and service delivery distress. Whilst service delivery in this municipality has deteriorated over the years, it has accelerated over the recent period.”
In the 2020/2021 financial year, the Mangaung metro achieved an unqualified audit outcome with findings.
In 2020, the National Treasury withheld conditional grant funding of R429m due to underspending that resulted from delays in completing grant-funded projects, auditor-general Tsakani Maluleke said in June.
“This placed further strain on the metro’s financial health and also had a negative impact on service delivery. The metro spent less than 2% of its infrastructure budget on repairs and maintenance, resulting in infrastructure such as roads and water networks further deteriorating,” Maluleke said.
“Service delivery protests increased as residents grew increasingly dissatisfied with pothole-riddled roads, having to go for days without water, and refuse sometimes not being collected for weeks. Although the metro held public participation sessions where the needs of the community were received and planned for, many of the planned targets were not achieved because they were not prioritised and/or because of a lack of funding.”
On Friday, Godongwana said it was disheartening to see roads riddled with potholes, with little effort made to speedily repair them.
“For too long basic, and critical, infrastructure has been allowed to fall into disrepair. This is but one of the obvious signs of municipal dysfunction, dysfunction that has festered under the previous municipal council. This is extremely disappointing, given the massive potential that this council must deliver quality services and uplift the people of Mangaung,” he said.
He stressed that councillors were elected and deployed in municipal leadership positions to improve people’s lives. “If your attitude and agenda are not aligned with that of national interest, then perhaps the time is right to reconsider whether being a local government leader is what you should be doing for the next five years,” Godongwana said.
He said there were provisions in place to deal with political and administrative infighting as well as factionalism, especially when these impeded service delivery.
“I stand here before you … pleading that you put the interests of communities first. The welfare of the people must be your priority,” he said. “You should not use the privilege and power of the leadership positions that you have been elected to, for other interests or personal gain. You should do your utmost to uphold the values of the constitution and the sanctity of political power.”
During the past few months, reports had been shared with the finance minister that indicated that “divisions and factionalism are rife in this council”. “These reports indicate that key decisions of the council are not being taken or delayed due to internal divisions. For example, the budget of the municipality was only approved at the third attempt, instead of being adopted, as per the legal requirements, by [May 20 2022]. This does not inspire confidence in your ability to govern. It also sends worrying signals to investors.”
Godongwana called on the councillors to drag the metro “out of its current dysfunctional state”. “This is a mammoth task. However, with the right political attitude and willingness to change the current dysfunctional city and full implementation of the FRP, this council is poised to make rapid improvements.” Godongwana said the cabinet appointed a team from Ntiyiso Consulting, led by national cabinet representative Paul Maseko, “to help the municipality on its recovery”.
“Their primary responsibility is to stabilise this municipality by ensuring the implementation of the financial recovery plan on behalf of the cabinet. The team is here to ensure that the financial and service delivery problems in the Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality are addressed.”
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