After three months there is still no signs that the nasional intervention team is making progress with service delivery in the Mangaung Metro.
The Mangaung DA Caucus held a press conferense on Monday (18/07) giving an outline of practical steps they want to take following the failure of the team’s progress in the service delivery crisis thus far.
This comes after a provincial intervention team in the metro could not make any progress for over two years. The national intervention team was appointed in April.
David Masoeu, the DA Mangaung Caucus Chair, said as opposition they do not want to criticise. “We want to assist the municipality in terms of the law to make a positive contribution to the lives of resi- dents,” he said at the conference.
Johan Pretorius, DA Manaung Caucus Leader said: “We are very disappointed in the response from the minister of cooperative governance and traditional affairs, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and her intervention team.” She answered questions put forward by the DA’s member of parlement Werner Horn on 10 June.
“The minister created the impression that her team would turn the financial management issues and lack of basic ser- vice delivery around. Three months into the six month intervention, little progress has been made,” Pretorius said.
“The minister claims that limitations of overtime and repairs and maintenance of critical service delivery fleet and equipment is ‘prioritiesed’. In her own answer and in reality it is evident that no urgency exist,” Pretorius said.
“Little improvement is experienced by residents in respect of the quality of ser- vices related to roads infrastructure, water leakages, refuse removal and solid waste management.”
He said the roads being tarred near the National Hospital for example, is part of a historical capital programme, and should not be seen as progress in the current in- tervention. The DA in Mangaung has un- dertaken to formally write to the Dlamini-Zuma with a request that she again visits Mangaung in order to deal with the con- tinued political interference and the at- tempts to subvert the work of the intervention team. There are concerns that all the action plans are directed towards Bloemfontein and do not include the far outreaches of the metro.
The DA also announced last week that they will take certain proposals to the council to enhance the oversight ability of the council into projects. Follow up questions will also be put to the minister on a turnaround plan with workable action steps and clear target dates of all the interventions that are essential to workable sollutions.
“Lastly we will ask our members of the standing commitee on Public Accounts Committee (Scopa) of the National Assembly to request this committee to do over- sight of the efficiancy of the intervention plan and the implementation thereof.”
Horn says that if the national intervention succeeds, this could be a road map of how to fix broken municipalities.
