The Dissolution of Thabazimbi Local Municipality
On Friday, the 4th of October, Premier Dr. Ramathuba, alongside Members of the Executive Council (EXCO) met with Thabazimbi Senior Managers, Labour Unions and all workers to convey the National Council Of Provinces (NCOP) and Provincial Government’s decision to put Thabazimbi Local Municipality in the Waterberg Region under administration in terms of section 139 1 (c).
During her meeting with the workers, Dr. Ramathuba told the workers that the council failed to adhere to the turn-around time of giving reasons on why the council should not be dissolved, but took the provincial government to the High Court for interference.
“Instead of working together with us for service provision and good governance, they took us to court, fighting to stay in power and forgot about the interests of the residents they serve. The NCOP with all 9 representatives from each province voted in favour of us and the court dismissed their case at a cost because we followed all the due process,” said Ramathuba.
The province is in a process of vetting administrators that are set to start working before the end of October. A team of appointed administrators will assist to restore and stabilize the municipality with their highly qualified experience that will focus on governance, finances and service provision.
Since 2021, there has been a battle of power between the ANC and DA led coalition, with each party appointing their own council that ran parallel with two mayors, CFOs, speakers and municipal managers and taking each other to the court to legitimise the motion of no confidence between political parties which affected the provision of services and good governance.
At the center of a political power battle, employees will go for more than three months without salaries while Magalies Water owed more than R180 million and Eskom more than R300 million.
“I have not been paid my salary for the last three months and my policies, including medical aid have lapsed. When I enquired about the delay, I was told to apologize to my Acting Director for questioning authority,” explained one of the affected workers.
One of the tasks that the administrators will work on is to revoke all acting appointments, payments of workers, and allowing employees that were suspended and dismissed as a result of political instability and not transgression to report back to work.
With the municipality having 13 Municipal Managers in a period of 12 years, the two trade unions representing workers have welcomed the decision by the Premier and vowed to support administrators to better services and workers’ conditions.
The Premier concluded her visit by meeting with key stakeholders such as business forum, community leaders, and taxi associations to share reasons and decisions taken by the Provincial Government to put the municipality under administration.