Note to Editors: Please find attached English soundbite by Cllr Thabo Nthapo, Afrikaans soundbite by Cllr Mariska Potgieter and Sesotho soundbite by Cllr Kabelo Moreeng.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) in Letsemeng calls for a full review of the council’s first-quarter progress report due to poor performance, which is crumbling under their watch and severely impacting service delivery.
The performance of each department is measured to determine whether the municipality can fulfil its mandatory obligation to run a capable institution.
But clearly, the institution is not in capable hands, as most departments are failing to meet the set targets.
The overall performance of the different departments will enable communities to see how the municipality is performing under ANC governance in Letsemeng.
- Municipal Manager: 12 targets set; 7 achieved; 5 not achieved.
- Finance Department: 27 targets set; 16 achieved; 11 not achieved.
- Technical Department: 22 targets set; 5 achieved; 17 not achieved.
- Corporate Services: 12 targets set; 2 achieved; 10 not achieved.
- Community Services: 16 targets set; 6 achieved; 10 not achieved.
This widespread underperformance directly hampers service delivery. When acting officials lack the capability or capacity to meet their targets, the municipality becomes unable to respond effectively to community needs, resulting in the very service delivery failures that residents in Letsemeng continue to experience.
For residents, this failure translates into persistent water outages, unreliable electricity supply, unmaintained roads, delayed refuse removal, and a complete breakdown in communication from the municipality. Households are left to shoulder the consequences of a municipality that cannot perform its most basic duties.
We have emphasised the urgent need to appoint qualified, competent individuals to improve the institution’s performance. We will escalate the matter to the MEC for CoGTA, Saki Mokoena, to intervene in the filling of these critical vacancies, as the ongoing failure to do so continues to undermine the municipality’s ability to deliver basic services.
The DA has, for years, been pushing for the filling of vacant positions in the institution to ensure they are placed in capable hands. Still, the ANC continues to prioritise politically connected individuals for key positions, resulting in crippling institutional performance and the steady collapse of service delivery across Letsemeng.