Reuben Musiyiwa drives about 16km twice a week to fetch unpurified water for his wife and three children from a borehole built by a garage owner. Musiyiwa, like everybody else in Letlhabile, outside Brits in the Madibeng Municipality, has been without running water for nearly five years.
In fact, the entire Bojanala Platinum District Municipality is in the same struggle – allegedly because the municipality has no money to repair old water schemes.
Some water projects have stalled and electricity around Rustenburg has been cut, while other services have come to a halt because of poor financial management.
The dismal state of municipalities in North West was highlighted by auditor-general Kimi Makwetu in a report released in July 2020. He listed the following reasons for the dismal state of affairs:
- Prioritising salaries over the maintenance of infrastructure;
- Stalled service delivery due to political infighting; and
- A lack of discipline in the basic internal controls required to manage financial and performance records.
On September 21 2020, the province’s finance MEC, Motlalepula Rosho, and head of department, Ndlela Kunene, said they intended to place 12 municipalities under administration.
Makwetu said 12 of the province’s 23 municipalities were already under administration:
- Bojanala Platinum District Municipality;
- Tswain;
- Maquassi Hills;
- Naledi;
- Ramotshere Moiloa Local Municipaity;
- Lekwa-Teemane;
- Madibeng;
- Mahikeng;
- Mamusa;
- Kgetlengrivier;
- Dr Ruth Segomotsi; and
- Ditsobotla.
He said in his report the municipalities had incurred about R3.7bn in irregular expenditure and owed Eskom and water boards a combined R3.4bn.
“Irregular expenditure remained high and increased by R719.8m due to a lack of political will to effect consequences, creating an environment that was conducive to a blatant disregard of the supply chain management laws and regulations,” he said.
Musiyiwa said a municipal truck came to his area once a month and sometimes left before all residents could get water.
Community activist Samuel Moloi, a local DA councillor, said: “We have no water … refuse is no longer collected, and people dump their rubbish in an open field in the middle of the township. RDP houses were left unfinished and the contractor just packed and left.”
Tsidiso Skhosana, who survives by collecting bottles and tins, said he had given up on ever seeing progress in Madibeng.
“Today I left home without washing because we don’t have water. Some people are using our plight to make a quick buck and sell us water. I pay R1 per 5l container.”
About a month ago the entire industrial area in Brits had no electricity. Companies bought generators, spending thousands on diesel.
Makwetu said financial statements from Rustenburg indicated that the municipality had lost R427.7m by June 2019, and that its liabilities exceeded its assets by more than R1bn.
Rustenburg mayor Mpho Khunou acknowledged the auditor-general’s findings, but said they were working hard to fix their problems.
Regarding irregular appointments, his municipality had already dismissed one official and another had resigned. “We are in a process of approaching the courts to reverse three multimillion-rand contracts which were allegedly awarded irregularly.”
The provincial government will appoint administrators to run the affected municipalities.
The report shows that the North West government has identified several shortcomings, including poor financial management, which undermines service delivery, along with wasting finances and resources.
Makwetu said the province’s financial health was cause for distress.
“This is evident from the number of repeat disclaimed audit opinions. The inability of the province to reverse the trend of negative audit outcomes over the years points to a culture that is not proactive in dealing with weaknesses in the control environments,” he said.
Makwetu said internal audit units and audit committees were rendered ineffective by unresponsive municipal managers, and councils tasked with oversight lacked the political will to effect consequences.
North West provincial treasury spokesperson Kesalopa Gill confirmed the MEC had made “a submission” to the cabinet on the 12 municipalities.
“At an appropriate time and as it has been done before, government will communicate its decision relating to support and intervention in municipalities,” Gill said.
North West cooperative governance and traditional affairs spokesperson Dineo Thapelo said the administration confirmed that some municipalities in the province were under administration.
The intervention “is as a result of failure by the councils [of these municipalities] to carry out their executive and other legislative mandates”.
SA Local Government Association spokesperson Tebogo Mosala said: “It is public knowledge North West audit outcomes are some of the worst in the country. We are deeply concerned about the continued regression in overall audit outcomes by the sector.”
Mosala said the audit findings highlighted a lack of accountability and consequence management by municipal leadership.
“The picture before us can only change if municipal management and leadership are held accountable to ensure that we strengthen our resolve of extracting accountability using the existing levers provided for in legislation.”
She said the association supported the amended Public Audit Act which would be critical in giving powers to the auditor-general to enforce accountability and consequence management.
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