COGTA MEC cracks whip on defaulting councillors
Municipal councillors who are found to have defaulted on their rates payments stand to lose their jobs. The KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) MEC for Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA) Nomusa Dube-Ncube has instructed municipal councils in all KZN’s 61 municipalities to institute disciplinary action against any councillor found to have defaulted on his or her rates as this constitutes a violation of the councillors’ code of conduct.
The tough stance by Dube-Ncube comes after an in-depth investigation by her department on a number of compliance issues by municipal office bearers and officials which included investigations into payments of rates by councillors which is a universal obligation of all municipal residents except those who qualify as indigents.
The departmental investigation has revealed that a total of R1.5-million is owed by councillors to various municipalities throughout KZN. Reacting to the outcome of the investigation Dube-Ncube said: “I am deeply disturbed to learn that there are councillors who are not leading by example in municipalities by not paying their dues to the municipalities which they represent. While the number of delinquent local government leaders is relatively small, we nevertheless view their conduct in a serious light because they are bringing their municipalities into disrepute.
“It is my considered view that they should not be serving in this important sphere of government. We need a local government that is professional, delivery-driven and free of the ills we have witnessed in the past. As leaders we cannot honestly ask communities to pay for their municipal services when we ourselves are not walking the talk.
“This conduct has compromised the recent good audit reports from the Auditor-General where at least nine clean audits were recorded, up from only one in the previous financial year. I have since ordered the Speakers of municipal councils to convene a meeting to deal with this issue without delay and report back to the department. We take a dim view of such practices and we want to see consequences.
“Those councillors who wish to dispute their account bills, must take the necessary steps speedily as we cannot allow this figure to accumulate any further. Our municipalities can ill-afford councillors who owe rates while they depend for their livelihoods on ordinary ratepayers.”
Dube-Ncube has also vowed to extend the investigation to civil servants in every other sphere of government as well as MPs and MPLs in the province.
For more information contact:
KZN COGTA spokesperson
Lennox Mabaso
Cell: 082 884 2403
