A call for a turnaround strategy has been made as tension and power struggles arose between the government-appointed administrator, Igbal Motal, and the mayor, Victoria Kgabi, threatening to derail provincial executive intervention at Maquassie Hills municipality.

The legislature’s portfolio committee on local government and traditional affairs, together with the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) that visited the municipality yesterday, resolved to call acting MEC Paul Sebegoe to intervene and implement a turnaround plan with time frames to help the municipality.

One of the things is that Sebegoe should facilitate for the administrator and the mayor to work together at Maquassi.

The committees was also checking if there had been any improvement in the municipality’s finances, and whether the administrator was getting the necessities required both politically and administratively.

Section 139 states that if a municipality cannot fulfil its executive obligations, the provincial executive must intervene to ensure that the executive obligation had been fulfilled.

This means appointing an administrator for the municipality to function fully.

During the meeting, Kgabi and Motal had disagreements that have led the committee to believe that there is a strained relationship between the two leaders.

The committee interacted with the municipality over its state of affairs, including its finances.

The municipality has been under administration in terms of Section 139(1)(b) since April after serious service delivery challenges were identified.

Kgabi raised Constitutional issues regarding the legality of invoking Section 139 to the municipality, and confusion on the roles and responsibilities of the council and administration during such period.

“We have discussed with the MEC the issues of who should be executing certain functions in the municipality between the council and the administrator.

“We have seen some tasks performed without the council being consulted and that caused uncertainty among us,” Kgabi said.

No-nonsense Scopa chairperson Hlomane Chauke said the committee wanted to re-evaluate the impact of the intervention.

“We will meet with the MEC to resolve issues raised by both parties. Sebegoe needs to give us a turnaround plan with clear time frames.

“If we do not have a clear plan of intervention to address issues by the auditor-general, we will not be able to achieve the 2014 clean audit goal,” Chauke said.
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