By Gcina Ntsaluba
Deputy Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta), Dr Namane Dickson Masemola, and Eastern Cape Cogta MEC, Zolile Williams, delivered scathing admonishments to Makana Municipality councillors and officials at the Settlers Monument on Wednesday morning before addressing residents at City Hall.
They led a high-level delegation to Makana Municipality in response to citizen protests and a formal memorandum of grievances to Cogta officials.
While Masemola avoided pre-judging Makana’s situation before hearing the Executive Mayor Yandiswa Vara’s presentation to the team, his said the damning Auditor-General’s reports from the past five years were a benchmark to evaluate claims made by municipal leadership.
The mayor’s presentation did not convince. Masemola later announced to citizens at City Hall the imminent deployment of a top-level team of engineers and financial experts to address Makana’s service delivery and governance failures.
Williams condemns Makana’s performance
Meanwhile, Williams publicly condemned the municipality’s leadership and administration for failing to deliver essential services despite years of provincial intervention.
“The administration is failing Makana,” Williams stated bluntly during his address, highlighting the municipality’s consecutive disclaimer audit opinions.
Williams did not mince words when addressing the political leadership’s responsibility to hold administrators accountable. “If the political leadership cannot hold managers accountable, then the political leadership actually must accept to be blamed for the failure of the municipality to perform its function,” he said.
The MEC revealed alarming financial statistics, including R178 million in irregular expenditure and approximately R23 million in fruitless and wasteful expenditure, while the municipality simultaneously faces serious cash flow challenges.
The mayor’s role
Despite acknowledging Executive Mayor Yandiswa Vara’s passion and efforts to address service delivery issues personally, Williams criticised her approach. “This approach of the mayor of wanting to do things herself is showing the absence of management, although present,” he remarked, suggesting that the mayor’s hands-on efforts compensated for administrative failures.
Williams warned the council that if they continued to fail to hold administrators accountable, his focus would shift to the speaker and mayor. “If you don’t remove them [underperforming administrators], our radar screen focuses on your speaker and mayor. Easy!” he declared.
The Eastern Cape COGTA department had previously engaged with the municipality on February 18 regarding an audit action plan. According to Williams, there had been “no movement” since that meeting, highlighting a pattern of administrative stagnation.
“On governance, there is no factionalism. It’s either you do it right or you do it wrong,” Williams said, stressing that political affiliations would not influence his assessment of municipal performance.
Williams announced plans to return next week for a formal council meeting to present these concerns directly to the council, demanding explanations for their inaction on administrative failures.
The MEC said that infrastructure challenges in Makana required external assistance, especially regarding water infrastructure.
Meanwhile, Masemola said he had conducted extensive research into Makana’s failings before the visit. “I read almost everything about you, including annual reports of the city and all the AG’s performance reports of the city for the past five years,” he said.
‘Every Municipality Must Work’
The visit formed part of the national “Every Municipality Must Work” program, which is focused on revitalising governance, improving service delivery, and restoring functionality in municipalities across the country.
Makana Local Municipality has faced persistent governance and service delivery challenges for more than a decade. These include political instability, weak financial management, inadequate infrastructure maintenance, and poor water and sanitation services. Residents have voiced their dissatisfaction through repeated protests, demanding urgent and sustainable solutions to the ongoing service delivery failures.
Audit outcomes have consistently highlighted governance lapses, while community frustrations have mounted due to unreliable access to basic services.
As the ministerial team prepared to meet with concerned residents at City Hall following their engagement with municipal officials, Masemola emphasised that citizen satisfaction was the ultimate measure of municipal effectiveness.
