Maquassi Hills municipality ordered to explain unauthorised spending
The Maquassi Hills Local Municipality in North West facing a dual crisis.
Black News 
The Maquassi Hills Local Municipality in Wolmaranstad, North West, is facing internal divisions, with two individuals simultaneously claiming the position of Council Speaker.
The municipality’s troubles deepened after the North West legislature’s Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA) expelled the municipal administration and mayor from a hearing for failing to provide adequate answers on unauthorised expenditure during the previous financial year.
SCOPA has given the municipality until Monday, 8 June, to submit a clear report.
SCOPA Chairperson Smuts Matshe says the municipal leadership had failed to respond to basic questions posed by the committee.
“You did not respond to the questions. So if you just fail to respond to the questions, what about complex matters of providing water, ensuring that the streets are clean, ensuring that there’s electricity provision and that we have trafficable streets,” Matshe said.
EFF member Ofentse Moema says the municipality needed to get its affairs in order ahead of returning to the committee.
“We must emphasise that going back to prepare these questions they must equally prepare themselves because there’s a need for service delivery. It can’t be correct that we come here, there are many issues and we go back to the same communities. The reason we are here is to play an oversight role to ensure that our people, ultimately, these issues we are engaging on, translate into services,” Moema says.
MK Party member Lerato Tsholo says her party had repeatedly raised concerns about the municipality’s conduct.
“We are not happy about how the local municipality is conducting its affairs. This is not for the first time.”
Democratic Alliance member Freddy Sonakile streesses that the municipality’s failures would ultimately be judged by voters.
“It’s them, again, on the 4th of November who must go and convince people to vote for them despite all that is happening in that municipality. So, I’m saying whatever is happening there, it is showing disdain to the very same people that you have to serve,” Sonakile says.
Residents in Wolmaranstad say they continued to suffer from inadequate service delivery, particularly around water supply.
“They are promoted into these positions for doing nothing. Our councillors don’t even fight with the municipality to get us water in our locations. I am supplying people with water. Wolmaranstad, especially in section 15 — we don’t have water. There is no water at all. It is unevenly distributed, some sections have while others don’t. There aren’t even any water pipes to bring water from one side to another,” one resident explains.
-Reporting by Simthandile Ntombela
