The FF Plus in North West has submitted proposals for a drastic Cabinet intervention in the chaotic Ditsobotla Local Municipality to the Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA), Velenkosini Hlabisa.
The Municipality serves, among others, the towns of Lichtenburg and Coligny.
The Minister undertook to consider the proposals at once and then take the matter up with the FF Plus again.
Years of mismanagement, corruption, faction fights and more recently, the plundering of municipal infrastructure have forced this Municipality to its knees.
There is no sign of effective service delivery. Water and power outages are at the order of the day, while street and road infrastructure crumbles away.
Criminals plunder and vandalise critical municipal infrastructure, such as power substations and water pumps, on an almost daily basis. A pervasive culture of lawlessness has taken root in the area and it appears that the local police force is unable to combat it.
Over the years, several intervention efforts by the North West provincial government have had very little to no success.
It is evident that the conventional constitutional section-139 interventions aimed at supporting struggling municipalities fall far short.
These are doomed to fail when local politicians and municipal management undermine the efforts to turn things around.
The FF Plus’s proposals entail a completely new approach where a strong national, inter-ministerial intervention team, with a mandate from Cabinet and executive powers, steps in to get the situation back under control and restores sustainable service delivery.
Such an intervention team should consist of, among others, senior officials of COGTA, the police, the Hawks and the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA).
It will ensure that the workers of lawlessness in and outside of the Municipality are held accountable.
The residents of the greater Ditsobotla municipal area should not be left at the mercy of corrupt and criminal elements who are destroying the community and local economy.
The deployment of such an intervention team could serve as a blueprint for similar interventions at municipalities countrywide.
It will also demonstrate that the Government of National Unity (GNU) is committed to restoring municipal service delivery and local economies.
And job creation will be facilitated, which will bring about a safer living environment for all South Africans.
The FF Plus will continue to constructively contribute to restoring and rebuilding the country for all communities’ benefit.
;
