Cape Town - Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma has reiterated that they will take over the running of the Mangaung metro.
This comes after the Cabinet’s decision this week where it announced the national government will take over Mangaung and Enoch Mgijima municipalities.
The Enoch Mgijima municipality in the Eastern Cape is where a stadium that cost R15 million was built and raised questions because of poor quality and high cost.
Dlamini Zuma, who was addressing the presidential imbizo in Mangaung on Saturday, said the Mangaung municipality was in a mess.
She told the community that the national government has invoked its constitutional powers to take over a dysfunctional municipality under its control.
#PresidentialImbizoFS : Community members of Van Stadensrus, Dewetsdorp, Wepener, Thaba 'Nchu, Botshabelo, and Bloemfontein in Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality raised their service delivery concerns during the #PresidentialImbizo in the Free State. 📷 @Kopano Tlape/ @GCISMedia pic.twitter.com/qdhpOrF9b4
— IOL Politics (@IOLPolitics) April 9, 2022
“We are going to take over Mangaung. We are going to work together with the Minister of Finance, National Treasury and other departments to make Mangaung better. We are going to work with everyone, but national will be in charge,” said Dlamini Zuma.
The issue of dysfunctional municipalities has been raised by the auditor-general over the years.
Cabinet said this week it was invoking section 139 of the Constitution to take over the two municipalities because they were facing serious financial and service delivery challenges.
It said national government would take direct control of the two municipalities.
This was confirmed by Dlamini Zuma on Saturday during the presidential imbizo where people in Mangaung had raised a number of service delivery challenges to President Cyril Ramaphosa and members of his Cabinet.
Dlamini Zuma formed part of the team who had responded to some of the issues raised by members of the community.