(Photo: AfriForum/ Website)
AfriForum demands urgent intervention from MaQueen Letsoha-Mathae, the Free State Prime Minister, and the Free State Department of Cooperative Government and Traditional Affairs after years of sustained cadre deployment in the Nketoana municipality.
According to the civil rights organization, Reitz, Lindley and several other towns are suffering from this destruction.
This demand follows in response to the recent shocking findings of a parliamentary oversight committee which exposed serious management and service delivery failures in the Nketoana municipality.
In addition to Reitz and Lindley, Petrus Steyn and Arlington are also part of this municipality.
According to Jaco Grobbelaar, AfriForum’s regional head for the Central Region, the situation in the Nketoana municipality is particularly dire, although several other towns in the province are already experiencing similar decline.
He says that this municipality is now characterized by complete decay, excessively high debt, collapse of basic service delivery and the looting of municipal funds.
“These issues are the direct result of the ANC’s irresponsible cadre deployment policy which over the years has replaced competent management with political appointments. Expertise and integrity have therefore given way to political loyalty and have therefore resulted in unavoidable failures at the expense of all residents,” says Grobbelaar.
AfriForum demands in its letter, which was addressed to Letsoha-Mathae and the Free State Department of Cooperative Government and Traditional Affairs on 23 April, in terms of art. 139 of the Constitution urgent provincial intervention in the affairs of the Nketoana municipality; the immediate dismissal of Mamiki Mokoena, the mayor; liability for financial mismanagement in the municipality; and the stabilization of the municipality’s administrative and political leadership.
Grobbelaar emphasizes that the people of this municipality and the wider Free State are left to their own devices, while incompetent and irresponsible leadership continues here unabated.
“This cannot be tolerated any longer. As long as cadre deployment is prioritized over merit, corruption will flourish and communities will suffer.”
He further says that AfriForum will not watch as towns are destroyed and will continue to fight to save municipalities, protect tax payers and ensure that communities receive the services they are entitled to and for which they pay.
AfriForum calls on residents of the Nketoana municipality to stand together against the destructive policy of cadre deployment and sign the civil rights organization’s petition against this policy here.