Note to Editors: Please find attached English and Sesotho soundbites by Cllr Tim Mpakathe.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) in Mantsopa Local Municipality will take immediate action by writing to the MEC for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Authority (CoGTA), Saki Mokoena, to ensure that the animal by-laws adopted by the council are properly promulgated, after the municipality repeatedly failed to publish them.
This failure leaves Hobhouse residents vulnerable to uncontrolled animals roaming the streets, posing safety and health risks to the community.
Hobhouse residents in the Mantsopa local municipality remain stranded after the municipality fails once again to promulgate the animal by-laws.
In terms of the Municipal Systems Act, a by-law passed by a municipal council must be published promptly in the provincial gazette and, when feasible, also in a local newspaper or in any other practical way to bring the contents of the by-law to the attention of the local community.
The DA caucus in the Mantsopa is dismayed by the misleading remarks made by Mayor Mamsie Tsoene at the oversight meeting of the Parliament Portfolio Committee on Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs on 17 June 2025, stating that the recently adopted animal by-laws by the council will be promulgated.
After her commitment to the portfolio committee, the DA issued a media statement on 24 June 2025, appreciating the efforts by the municipality to enhance the promulgation of the animal by-laws.
On 8 August 2025, we wrote a letter to the municipal manager in an attempt to determine if the by-laws had been promulgated in the government gazette as required by the Municipal Systems Act. However, no response was received from her office, and the Mayor stated that the by-laws had not yet been promulgated.
Residents of Hobhouse will spend another financial year dealing with the problem of animals roaming their streets without any help, as the municipality is failing to gazette the bylaws.