Even as hundreds of Komani residents marched to the city hall yesterday demanding to see the back of mayor Sisisi Tolashe and council to be dissolved, Milowo Trading – the civil engineering company owed R14.2-million by Enoch Mgijima municipality – is preparing to auction more municipal assets.
About 800 irate residents took to the streets yesterday, calling for Bhisho to place the local authority under administration and sack Tolashe and her mayoral committee.
The marchers also called for a forensic investigation into the past decade of the municipality’s finances.
Ezibeleni resident, Athenkosi Simon said most Ezibeleni residents were unemployed, and likened the area to a “forgotten location”.
“There are no services at Ezibeleni and we often have electricity and water problems. Our councillors are doing nothing to assist us,” he said.
Businessman Daryl Westran said he was not satisfied with how the municipality is managed. “We constantly have problems with electricity, our street lights are not working and we recently had an outage which was never communicated to us,” he said.
DA MP and Enoch Mgijima constituency leader Terri Stander echoed Simon and Westran.
“We demand a forensic audit for the 2008 to 2018 financial years, a financial recovery plan and the municipality to be placed under administration,” she said.
Stander said they want the municipality to comply with section 32 of the Municipal Finance Management Act to recover any irregular, unauthorised, and wasteful expenditure.
She said she had written to cooperative governance and traditional affairs (Cogta) minister Zweli Mkhize, finance minister Nhlanhla Nene and Cogta MEC Fikile Xasa demanding action, to no avail.
Tolashe she had yet to study the petition, but added, “I will send the petition to the relevant people”.
Responding to the call for the dissolution of the municipality, Tolashe said that decision was beyond them as councillors.
“We acquired a debt from Inkwanca municipality and we submitted to court that we don’t owe Milowo Trading. After losing the case in court we had no option but to pay the money. We are engaging with the provincial department on what is our next stage,” she said.
However, there is soon to be a second sale in execution of the few assets the municipality has left.
The municipality failed in its recent bid to rescind the judgment in terms of which it was found to be indebted to Milowo to the tune of R21-million.
After the municipality failed to pay, its vehicle fleet and other assets were seized and sold off this month.
However, according to Milowo Trading’s attorney Brin Brody, there was still some R14-million outstanding after the sale of some 44 vehicles, including trucks, TLBs, graders and bakkies.
A date for a second sale in execution has yet to be decided.
In rejecting their application to rescind the judgment, Grahamstown High Court Judge Ndumiso Jaji also ordered it to pay the legal costs on a punitive scale to show the “displeasure of the court”. —tembiles@dispatch.co.za..