Rethink on Malamulele as protests rage on

The people of Malamulele in Limpopo have 21 days to restate their case to the Municipal Demarcation Board to have their own municipality.

Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Pravin Gordhan has asked the board to reconfigure certain municipal boundaries that include Vhembe district, in which Malamulele is currently located.

Malamulele remains under lockdown as residents continue to protest after a ruling last week that it should remain part of the Thulamela municipality.

The residents are demanding their own municipality, largely on the grounds that the area's population was much bigger than that of other municipalities.

They also claimed that Malamulele, which is dominated by Tsonga-speaking people, was poorly serviced compared to the Venda-speaking part of Thulamela.

Yesterday, the chairman of the board, Jane Thupana, said: "The submission [by the people of Malamulele] will be considered now. This follows the minister of cooperative governance's proposal to the board made in the past month. In the proposal, he requested the board to reconfigure some municipalities. This means some municipalities have been identified for configuration in line with the department's back-to-basics problem as it tries to resolve challenges for struggling or dysfunctional municipalities."

Thupana had earlier said a standalone municipality was not viable for the area.