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It was praised last year by Auditor-General Kimi Makwetu for a squeaky clean audit and delivering a village electrification project R1.6 million below budget.
But this year the Engcobo Local Municipality in the Eastern Cape has been beset by service-delivery protests and faces a possible takeover by its province’s government.
Ratepayers, taxi operators, businesspeople and other residents have shut operations in the small town, complaining about a lack of water, bad roads, shortage of housing, incomplete projects, nepotism and tenders allegedly being awarded to the same companies repeatedly.
Chief financial officer Mzusekho Matomane and municipal manager Silumko Mahlasela, who brought the town a clean audit last year, are no longer there. Their contracts ended and were not renewed.
For the past two weeks Ngcobo residents have shut down all the businesses in town. On Thursday hundreds of protesters, wearing mainly SA National Civic Organisation T-shirts, demonstrated outside the municipal offices.
Premier Phumulo Masualle and cooperative governance and traditional affairs MEC Fikile Xasa have travelled there twice in two weeks to try to quell the tension.
On Thursday Masualle was in Ngcobo again and addressed protesters who demanded the municipality be placed under administration. He was booed when, instead of granting their wish, he announced a softer section 154 intervention which will result in administrators from Treasury, cooperative governance and the office of the premier being sent to Ngcobo from Monday. But he told them that if the problem persists a takeover is on the cards.
Asked what went wrong in Ngcobo, which obtained a clean audit last year and regressed one step back from clean to financially unqualified with findings, Masualle said: “In the recent past we have seen a great amount of instability here. There was a time when there were all kinds of fights with respect to the municipal manager [position]. Almost all those have had the effect of destabilising the municipality.”
Various municipal projects were marred by irregularities and delays will also be investigated.
“We are going to immediately set up a forensic investigation to ensure that we expose things that are not done properly so that the perpetrators can be brought to book,” Masualle said.
Xasa said all this would be done in three months and a report would be tabled before council.
Xasa confirmed Mahlasela and Matomane’s contracts had ended.
“The municipal manager, I know his contract came to an end and the post was advertised and somebody else was appointed, Mr Poswa. I think generally all the managers here, their contracts come to an end. There was an attempt to renew their contracts without posts being advertised,” Xasa said.
Current municipal manager Silulami Poswa attributed most problems to miscommunication between the council and residents and the premier’s intervention would help.
Poswa said the municipality’s audit outcome was an unqualified one which was still good.
“I am not saying we are doing well as a municipality. No, not at all. I am saying there is a problem of communication and some projects which are not done in time and not being communicated to the different stakeholders,” he said.
Regional Sanco chairperson Bantu Songca lamented the lack of service delivery, saying the town did better under the Transkei government.
“There is no development. We have no water despite being surrounded by many rivers, no streets lights, no public toilets and it becomes painful having to watch the elderly moving up and down the town trying to find a place to relieve themselves when they are here for their grants,” he said.
“There are no roads in Ngcobo, drains are blocked and smelly and people don’t have housing, and refuse is not being collected. The municipality is just useless and we don’t know what they are paid for.”
