The ANC has hinted that embattled Moqhaka mayor Mantebu Mokgosi will not be around for much longer following revelations that she was a director of the company that built the embarrassingly open toilets in her municipality.
The ANC's head of organising, Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula, said yesterday that the ruling party would take action.
"With regards to the revelation that the mayor was involved in [building open toilets] we are looking at the matter.
"We don't retreat in saying that, should there be maladministration on the part of our public representatives, heads will roll . action will be taken without any fear or favour. Our history speaks for itself on this particular matter.
"In other municipalities where such things have happened we have not been hesitant in taking decisions with regard to that," said Mbalula.
He was briefing the media at a press conference at Luthuli House, the ANC head office, in Johannesburg, on the party's preparedness for the local government elections next week.
Mbalula said that the ANC had ordered the Free State ANC leadership to take "swift action" on the Moqhaka scandal.
Newspaper reports revealed that Mokgosi and her husband were directors of the company that built the 1620 open toilets in Rammolutsi, Free State.
It was suggested that Mokgosi was a councillor when her company received the contract, but she has denied the charge.
ANC head of elections Ngoako Ramatlhodi reiterated that "corrective measures" will be taken with regard to Moqhaka.
The open toilets saga has hugely embarrassed the ANC, which had gained political mileage by condemning the open toilets built in Makhaza by the DA-led Cape Town.
Ramatlhodi said part of the ANC's investigation would involve looking at where the party's internal monitoring mechanisms had failed.
"It suggests there was failure in communication somewhere in the system," he said.
More than 300 of the toilets have already been covered, and the ANC said the remaining ones would be covered by June.
- The ruling party is pressing ahead with its legal action against the DA over the distribution of a pamphlet that claims that Planning Minister Trevor Manuel had referred to the ANC as "racist, unaccountable and corrupt".
This is despite a written undertaking by the DA yesterday not to distribute the pamphlet. This was after the ANC served papers on the opposition party, accusing it of distributing the "false" pamphlet.
The DA has distanced itself from the pamphlet, though it maintains that the contents of the pamphlet were part of an earlier press release - which the opposition party has stood by.
ANC lawyer Siyabonga Mahlangu said the party had proof that the DA was behind the distribution of the pamphlet. He said DA member Ntokoza Kheswa had personally distributed the pamphlet in parts of Soweto.