A task team has been formed to come up with a rescue plan for the troubled Amahlathi municipality in Stutterheim.
Co-operative governance & traditional affairs MEC Fikile Xasa said the team, led by Thabo Mdukiswa, is busy with “preliminary investigations which will help craft terms of reference for national Treasury to institute a forensic investigation” into the events that led to the collapse of the municipality.
Xasa announced these developments on Thursday, a few hours after ANC provincial secretary Lulama Ngcukayitobi announced that the ANC had recalled the top troika of the council. This includes mayor Pateki Qaba.
“This is in line with the principle of the ANC to be consultative and take people into our confidence when such an important decision is to be taken. We have given ourselves a period of not more than 10 days to conclude and have a new troika at Amahlathi municipality,” said Ngcukayitobi.
The municipality has been in lockdown for the past six weeks, ever since hundreds of residents from Mlungisi township and surrounding villages took to the streets, accusing the troika of sidelining them when they hired workers for a planned road construction project.
This resulted in the arrest of some youths, after protesters torched a clinic and a community hall and blockaded the N6 between Cathcart and East London in demonstrations that saw several delivery trucks being torched.
There is no running water in parts of the municipality as some water sources have been vandalised and the last operational valve in the town’s water source has broken.
Ngcukayitobi said the PEC “made an assessment of the troika’s performance and resolved to reconfigure the executive”. “This will bring closure to the ongoing leadership crisis and give an opportunity for the delivery of services to the people of Amahlathi like other communities elsewhere.”
Meanwhile, Xasa said, the forensic investigation “will be conducted by the national Treasury following allegations of nepotism, jobs for sale, jobs given to relatives and families, and the issuing of tenders.”
Xasa visited the area on Tuesday and met with the affected stakeholders behind closed doors. His spokesperson, Mamnkeli Ngam, said there were no set time frames for the investigation by national Treasury at this stage, but they were there “to engage key stakeholders” to avoid further chaos.
“We cannot continue to frustrate our people, hence we need to find lasting solutions,” said Xasa. “We expect all stakeholders to be ready for that so that we put people and their interests first. We will follow up on the cleanliness of the town and waste management with the municipal leadership, and other service delivery matters.”
Ngam said one of the key challenges was access to water.
“Youth leadership has committed to protect the water infrastructure,” he said.
Ngcukayitobi said the ANC was confident that the newly formed task team would soon announce a comprehensive plan to deal with service delivery and other concerns of the community...