It's on my radar now: Ramaphosa vows to restore dysfunctional Ditsobotla municipality

ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa was confronted with arguably one of the most poorly run municipalities in the North West when he took his Letsema campaign to the province on Saturday.

Ramaphosa was in Lichtenburg in the dysfunctional Ditsobotla local municipality to assess the poor state of the municipality which has been put under administration.

The municipality has been engulfed in turf wars for years and at some point had two mayors, two speakers and two spokespeople.

This led to the collapse of critical systems and little to no service delivery.

Things have become so bad that ahead of Ramaphosa’s visit, the municipality quickly executed patch-up jobs in an attempt to cover up the many potholes that have become synonymous with the area.

One of the main roads, which has been riddled with massive potholes for years was suddenly fixed ahead of Ramaphosa’s visit.

TimesLIVE witnessed some municipal workers filling some of the potholes as they arrived in the area. This, according to locals and some government officials, was bizarre because municipal workers do not generally work over weekends.

Ramaphosa denounced this, saying it was concerning that roads were being fixed simply because he was coming to town.

“I’ve been told that 'President some of these things are getting fixed because you are coming'.

“We want a new council that will ensure that things like potholes are fixed at all times. That rubbish and dirt that I have seen around is cleaned so that this town is clean,” he said.

ANC NEC member Zizi Kodwa said they had witnessed this trend of municipalities rushing to fix things when the president visits and that it was unacceptable behaviour.

“We have seen it in a number of municipalities whenever the president comes, suddenly there’s projects of fixing potholes and all that. It’s wrong, it shows you that there is a will but there’s no commitment,” Kodwa said.

Ramaphosa also heard from ANC and community members as well as businesspeople that things have got worse in the hands of the ANC in the area.

As an example, one businessperson referred to a company that was awarded a water project for a whopping R32m to refurbish infrastructure previously upgraded for only R1m.

He alleged after spending such an exorbitant amount, the contractor had left the water infrastructure in an even poorer state as communities now do not have water.

These are some of problems communities across the country reveal as Ramaphosa undertakes the Letsema campaign.

Ramaphosa promised that some of these issues will be dealt with speedily after the ANC intervened by dissolving the municipality and placing it under administration.

He said the ANC had become aware of criminals who had infiltrated the municipality stealing money, squabbling and even stabbing people over access to its financial resources.

“I’ve been told that there are criminals inside the council, we want them arrested. I hear they go around carrying knives and stabbing people. They will also get arrested.

“I’ve been told that those who have been in charge of this municipality are people who have been destroying our municipality through theft. Day and night the only thing they were doing was stealing money,” Ramaphosa said.

“They were also fighting in council meetings the entire time ... so we’re going to fix things, that’s why we have dissolved the municipality, we have closed it. There’s going to be new elections and our new candidates will come in and it’s them who are going to fix things.”

Ramaphosa said the municipality was now on his radar and he would ensure its functionality was speedily restored.

TimesLIVE

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