The North West MEC for Cooperative Governance, Human Settlements and Traditional Affairs, Nono Maloyi, has challenged officials in the department to turn around the situation in municipalities in the province.

Maloyi recently addressed a departmental strategic planning lekgotla, where she bemoaned the state of affairs in most of the municipalities.

“[It] leaves much to be desired. The Auditor General’s previous reports depict a worrying picture about the municipalities in the province. Municipalities are not able to use their infrastructure grant.

“No municipality has received a clean audit and for us to have functional municipalities, we first need to stabilise the department by making sure that we deal with the high vacancy rate in the department. Once we have stabilised the department, we will then be able to stablise our municipalities,” Maloyi said.

The Member of the Executive Council (MEC) said the department has a responsibility to ensure that all municipalities across the province are able to discharge their constitutional mandate of providing quality services to their respective communities.

Maloyi said the high vacancy rate of senior managers in municipalities has to be addressed.

“Almost all our municipalities have vacant positions of senior managers. You cannot talk about building a capable State when you do not have qualified people to do the work.”

Maloyi said while the whole country is grappling with load shedding, municipalities must explore possible alternative sources of energy to mitigate the current challenges.

He said municipalities are unable to use their infrastructure grants, and the department must develop a strategy to assist municipalities to utilise their grants.

Moreover, the MEC said his department should set up proper systems to deal with traditional leadership disputes without taking sites.

“The department must have a good working relationship with the North West House of Traditional and Khoi-San Leaders (NWHTKL).”

He said before a dispute on traditional leadership is referred to the provincial government, the NWHTKL must find a way of dealing with the dispute because they understand the issues on traditional leadership “much better”.

Maloyi has also called for capacity building for disaster management to deal with disasters and the effects of climate change.

Source: South African Government News Agency