(File photo: ActionSA)
The Ngwathe municipality has been plunged into a management and service delivery crisis after Victoria de Beer-Mthombeni, the mayor, apparently wants to appeal again against a court ruling that orders that provincial intervention must be implemented immediately.
The Bloemfontein High Court recently confirmed that the court order from last year, which requires provincial intervention and the dissolution of the municipal council, must come into effect immediately.
This follows after AfriForum’s application was successful not to further delay the execution of the order through legal action.
Despite this order, the municipality has indicated that it wants to appeal again against the latest ruling.
According to AfriForum, this brings the total of appeal attempts by Ngwathe – to evade the court order – to at least five.
AfriForum says claims by the mayor that the municipality is “stable and functioning” and that service delivery “continues without interruption” are a myth.
Alta Pretorius, the organization’s district coordinator for the Mooirivier area, says more than 60 water outages and around 3,000 power outages were reported in Parys within 72 hours over the weekend.
Amid continuous water cuts. (Photo: Roberta Ciuccio / AFP)
“To claim under these circumstances that the municipality is not in a state of crisis is misleading and shows that the mayor is completely removed from the reality that residents are confronted with on a daily basis,” says Pretorius.
She says that the latest court ruling “requires action rather than further delay and to evade liability”.
AfriForum also criticizes the use of taxpayers’ money to finance repeated appeals while basic services such as water, power and sanitation are failing.
The organization considers the intended appeal without a proper council meeting as a violation of principles of good governance and transparency.
Schalk Burger, chairman of AfriForum’s Parys branch, says residents are discouraged about the “cat-and-mouse game” and insists that experts urgently need to take over to restore service delivery.
In the meantime, the court has already ordered that the provincial government must introduce a recovery plan, appoint an administrator and regularly report to the court on progress to halt the decline in Ngwathe.