‘Municipalities are milked dry on their watch’: DA to lay criminal charges against municipal managers
· Citizen
The DA says it will lay criminal charges against 10 municipal managers from some of South Africa’s worst-performing municipalities.
The party identified municipalities that it claims are riddled with corruption and financial failures, and have little or no service delivery to residents. These municipal managers come from provinces such as the Eastern Cape, North West and the Free State. The DA said these managers were selected based on the Auditor-General’s (AG) report, which flagged them for failing to account for their finances.
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DA parliamentary leader George Michalakis told the media in Cape Town on Thursday that these municipal managers failed to submit their financial reports to the Auditor-General – they also failed to follow recommendations from the AG’s office.
“The municipalities are milked dry on their watch and South Africans are left without basic services; it is time that these 10 individuals are no longer recycled by the ANC but are forced to account by our criminal justice system,” he said.
He said these municipal managers had presided over the decay of their communities while violating procurement and financial laws.
“The charges will be pursued under section 173(1) of the Municipal Finance Management Act, which provides for offences relating to gross negligence, material accounting irregularities and providing false information to the Auditor-General.
“The DA’s plan is clear: appoint competent officials on merit, enforce accountability without exception and professionalise municipal administration through continuous skills development,” he said.
Michalakis said South Africans deserve municipalities that work, protect public money and deliver basic services.
“The culture of political protection and consequence-free mismanagement must end,” he said.
Why does the buck stop with municipal managers?
On the other hand, DA spokesperson on cooperative governance and traditional affairs, Marina van Zyl, told the media at the same briefing that municipal managers occupy powerful positions that could either build or destroy a municipality.
“They operate mostly outside of the public eye and yet their impact on the daily lives of residents is felt everywhere; they have the power to make or break a municipality, and yet when they do wrong, consequences rarely follow,” she said.
Van Zyl said the municipal managers the DA is laying criminal charges against have treated the public purse like a bottomless pit.
“The first step to good governance and ensuring the provision of basic services is the appointment of competent civil servants, not cadres, consequences and not redeployment.
“If municipal managers are grossly negligent, if they ignore material accounting irregularities or if they provide false information to the auditor-general, they are committing a crime,” she said.
Free State municipalities under the radar
Meanwhile, Michalakis said he noted that most of the municipal managers that they are laying charges against come from the Free State.
“In my opinion, it says the province has been hollowed out not only financially but also in many other aspects, ethically, morally; it is a province that you will know that for a very long time it was run by Ace Magashule. I do believe that a lot of the mismanagement culture that was instilled through the ANC continued from his legacy,” he said.