City of Tshwane placed under administration

The Gauteng provincial government has placed the City of Tshwane under administration amid a “number of governance failures” raised in recent years.

Gauteng human settlements and co-operative governance MEC Lebogang Maile made the announcement on Friday.

It comes just a day after the DA was removed from power in the City of Tshwane. On Thursday, two motions of no confidence resulted in both Tshwane council speaker Katlego Mathebe and mayor Stevens Mokgalapa being ousted.

Maile said the constitution made provision that when things were not going right and the municipality was not running properly, the province could invoke section 139 of the constitution.

The section gives the province the power to take over the running of the municipality if the municipality is unable to adequately perform the function.

“Some of the reasons include all these allegations of corruption that have been taking place, all these illegal appointments, inability to deal with findings and recommendations of the AG, the collapse of service delivery; there were no ward committees since 2016,” Maile told eNCA on Friday.

He said the province had raised these issues repeatedly over a period of time with the municipality and the municipality had not responded positively.

Maile said the appointment of the administrator had nothing to do with who the mayor was.

He said the council can appoint a mayor and a speaker, as it was their right.

“But we will then send an administrator at the right time. That mayor and the speaker will be working with the administrator that has been appointed,” Maile said.