Rebuilding Ditsobotla Local Municipality.

Added: 2026-05-31

[00:00:00]you don't go to Guana. He's been in the Ditsobotla Local Municipality in Northwest to hand over a revised financial recovery plan to the council.

[00:00:08]In the past, Ditsobotla has been accused of virtually collapsing. Residents say they receive no services. For a long period, there were two separate people who each came to be the mayor of the town. Dr. Tinashe Nenzou is a local government expert at the Public Research at the Public Affairs Research Institute. Dr. Nenzou, good afternoon to you. I mean, Ditsobotla became famous as the council with two mayors, as a council that really was a demonstration of how service delivery can collapse.

[00:00:34]The finance minister is now making sure they implement this financial recovery plan. Can a plan like this really work?

[00:00:43]>> Good afternoon, Stephen, and to your viewers. Yes, um Ditsobotla is one of those unique cases that are similar to also what happened with um the Thabazimbi Local Municipality in Limpopo, and also um the Pokwane Municipality in the Northern Cape, where you found that um the institutional governance failures and the bankruptcy that is facing Ditsobotla today are embedded in political factions and divisions. I mean, that municipality's was actually rendered dysfunctional because there were these different council structures with different mayors and municipal managers, where you couldn't really clearly identify who is the center of political authority in the executive and also the administration. So, um 8 months ago, um the National Treasury, in deliberation of course, with um the committee in Parliament for cooperative governance and the NCOP had to finally step in and put Ditsobotla under Section 139.

[00:01:51]Although there were debates around whether Ditsobotla shouldn't be just dissolved as a council and, you know get to newly elect um new members. But then it was put under section 39 139 and then the recovery plans that we are seeing that are being communicated have been long coming because an administrator has been doing quite a lot of diagnostic reviews and stabilizing the municipality so that it would be able to work together with the administration the administrator to adopt this financially recovery plan coming from the national treasury. So we are yet to see if it would really work but under the current circumstances that we are also in a local government campaigning era, we are not yet sure if whether they will be cooperation coming from the various political representatives.

[00:02:41]>> How far can they go in not cooperating?

[00:02:43]I mean if there's an administrator, can't that person just implement what needs to be implemented?

[00:02:49]>> Well, the administrator does have the jurisdictional authority to compel council to adopt the recovery plan based on the fact that it's there to help them. It's there to ensure that there's stability, there is financial management, there's also a cost recovery that needs to be to be implemented from the alleged payment of ghost workers and employment of unqualified human resource administrators and and service deliverers. So under these circumstances, they have to cooperate but remember sometimes political resistance in tandem with trying to cooperation with national prerogatives does take place in various ways. This can also include ways in which these political representatives might not fully cooperate in the sense of going to communities trying to address the issues that need to be addressed and also ensuring that communities get to gain confidence and pay for for for service delivery.

[00:03:52]Um You know, services that they receive. So, these are some of the complexities that the administrator will have to work around in terms of negotiating, getting counselors to cooperate, but also getting counselors to communicate with their constituencies and communities about the turnaround that is going to be made in the municipality.

[00:04:12]>> So, I mean, one of the things the minister said was that the council employs too many people. It should have about 450, it has over 700. Now, those people I presume are on employment contracts, they'll be permanent staff.

[00:04:25]Can they really just be fired because the council doesn't need them? I mean, that's a very difficult problem to deal with.

[00:04:33]>> It is a very difficult one, Stephen.

[00:04:36]This actually reminds me of a study that I did many years ago in one of the municipalities getting to understand exactly the processes of ensuring that there is an implementation of the size that is commanded by national treasury of the local government bureaucracy that always has a cap between 35 to 38% of the wage bill that's supposed to be spent by municipality. But then, the difficulties in doing that, Stephen, is that there are quite a number of people who are working in the municipalities particularly at your lower staff levels.

[00:05:13]Here we are talking about grave gravesite um um workers, you know, your cleaners, and those who are working in in public facilities, etc. who are not necessarily within the upper echelons of the management. That is where the largest numbers of your bureaucracy sit. And most of the time, those employees do not necessarily have the requisite skills, the qualifications, and they're supposed to be aligned within specific service delivery departments. But then, you also find that over the years the public works employment program which has brought in a number of workers to support municipalities with service delivery. There was an expectation that after that period of their their contract employment they would be absorbed in the municipality.

[00:06:04]Now national treasury is very clear with its competency framework and also the way in which organizations should be structured that each and every single employer must follow the competency framework and they need to be an organizational structure where employees are going to be placed. So if a municipality does not review its organogram structure and it does not provide job descriptions that are aligned with the necessary units to service delivery units and also ensuring that those who are going to be employed in the municipality go through a process of recruitment so that it is transparent. They go through interviews.

[00:06:43]They submit their qualifications and to also see the area of competencies.

[00:06:49]Therefore it becomes problematic and this is one of the reasons why you find that in municipalities the resistance Steven to review organograms and to stick to the national treasury pre-acquisition of having a 35 to 38% of the wage bill going into salaries becomes very problematic in the long run.

[00:07:10]>> Mhm. So okay, all of this is going on and we see politicians in Ditsobotla who've literally ignored things before, but you still are dealing with managers who were presumably appointed by those politicians and could still be part of political factions and they'll be the ones who have to supervise all of this.

[00:07:28]They have to do all of this. And you have a problem in Ditsobotla where it may not have a large enough revenue base. People don't simply don't earn enough money to pay for their services.

[00:07:38]I mean this is a council that is going to be in trouble for a while, I would suspect.

[00:07:44]>> Yeah, for for a while it will be in trouble because it's not just an overnight issue. And if you have to deal with employee related matters, you also need to think about the trade unions that are operating at local government level who are there to provide representation for the workers. So, sometimes you might find that they will be a little bit of a hustle with unions if you have to think of the ways in which the municipality has to institutionalize a turnaround strategy that might see some employees being removed out of the municipality because they do not comply with the way in which they have been appointed. But then you also have negotiations that have got to happen with the bargaining council that involves the unions. So, it will take a little bit of time. SALGA will obviously need to play a role in here. But then the senior managers, those who have been complicit in some of these very adverse findings of employees being employed in municipality irregularly, that is going to be a little bit troublesome because there certain investigation reports will have to be produced by the administrator so that they can be sent to COGTA, to National Treasury, and also submitted to the portfolio committee at provincial level that is in that is providing oversight over over local government which is called cooperative governance that has to also escalate these reports to the National Council of Provinces. And SCOPA if SCOPA needs to be brought in with the cooperative governance committee. So, it will take a little bit of time because this is a negotiated process but at the same time there is a sense of urgency in turning things around especially now that there will be a new council that will have to be elected after the local government elections.

[00:09:40]Which counselor would want to enter into council that is not at um at the best position that it should be in when it comes to governance matters. So, there is a sense of urgency that needs to be applied, but it it will take a little bit of time and negotiation.

[00:09:54]>> And Dr. Ndzo, I mean, this is just a board with a relatively small council in Northwest, but the finance minister is also very upset with the city of Joburg, one of the biggest metros in the country with how it's managing its money at the moment. How do you see that playing out?

[00:10:08]Do you think he's going to be able to force them to manage their money in a better way?

[00:10:13]>> They they have to cooperate. Um Steven, this scathing letter that was written by the minister um clearly outlining to the city of Johannesburg that they have not been able to provide a budget that is realistic. In fact, they're providing a budget that is underfunded. They're not collecting revenue, and they're on non-compliance matters that are also um related to that letter with Emfuleni Local Municipality.

[00:10:40]For a big city, you wouldn't expect that such a letter could be you know, written by a minister trying to compel a city such as Johannesburg to really comply, to really step up when it comes to revenue collection, to to manage to set up its control systems, you know, in a proper manner. So, under these circumstances, city of Johannesburg will have to um negotiate with a national treasury um in terms of how they are really going to put um their systems into place in order to circumvent these adverse findings. But, another problematic area, Steven, is that if they do not comply with national treasury, national treasury um has got nothing to lose. If really they want to to crack the whip, they can withhold the city of Joburg It's grants that are coming from National Treasury, and that will be a complete disaster because right now the city of Joburg is working on a budget deficit, and it has 2 million sorry, 200 million rands that it has to try to, you know, to get from where I don't know in order for them to meet their service delivery backlogs, and they are not even paying their service providers. They're owing service providers since 20 20 24, 23, you know, up to 25 million. So, it's it's it's it's really a matter of Johannesburg having to step up, working with National Treasury in order to comply in order to get those funds. Otherwise, National Treasury is going to to close the tap. Yeah.

[00:12:17]>> Dr. Dr. Tiny Nxumalo, thank you so much.

[00:12:19]Really do appreciate it. Local government expert at the Public Affairs Research Institute. Well, in