Makana municipality to appeal court ruling

The Makana municipality has announced its intention to appeal a judgment that the council be dissolved and placed under administration.

On January 14, judge Igna Stretch found the municipality had  failed to provide services to the community and was thus in breach of the constitution.

In the high court in Makhanda, she ordered Eastern Cape premier Oscar Mabuyane and his executive to “implement a recovery plan aimed at securing Makana municipality’s ability to meet its obligations to provide basic services and to meet its financial commitments”.

She also ordered that an administrator be appointed pending a fresh election.

In a statement on Wednesday, Makana mayor Mzukisi Mpahlwa said the municipality had reasonable grounds to appeal the judgment and had made significant strides both politically and administratively.

“Our financial situation has changed,” Mpahlwa said.

“We are now able to pay our current creditors as they fall due and we have payment plans in place to settle arrears to creditors over a period of two years.

“Arrears [to] creditors have decreased from R190m to R121m.

“National and provincial Treasury have commended the municipality for improving its financial governance and budget management after the municipality tabled its first funded adjustment budget on November 8 2019 in this term of council.

“Budget provision has been made to improve service delivery through repairs and maintenance of which we will see results in coming months,” Mpahlwa said.

The Unemployed People’s Movement (UPM) took the municipality to court, arguing it was in breach of the constitution by failing to provide services in a sustainable manner.

The movement argued the municipality had failed to manage its administration, budgeting and planning processes to give priority to basic needs of the community.

The UPM also listed 15 other respondents, including Mabuyane, Cogta MEC Xolile Nqatha and President Cyril Ramaphosa.

Mpahlwa said the municipality had improved governance, the municipality’s budget was passed every year and planning processes such as the integrated development plan were in place.

“There is a Municipal Public Accounts Committee (MPAC) in place that is strictly dealing with oversight — the suspension of the [director of] infrastructure was as a result of this committee.

“The council meetings, portfolio committee meetings, budget steering committee, meetings and audit and  risk committee meetings are sitting as per their scheduled dates.

“A financial misconduct disciplinary board has also been established,” Mpahlwa said.

“Resolutions are taken during these meeting and thereafter implemented.”

Mpahlwa indicated the municipality had improved its water supply and quality with further funded projects under way on both the water and sewage works, which would see improvements in 2021 and 2022.

He said the financial recovery plan created after the last provincial intervention in 2014 had been adopted by the council in 2015 and it had now been brought in line with the adjustment budget.

Asked why none of this had been presented to the court, Mpahlwa  said they were taking this up with their legal team.

Both the provincial executive and the municipality seemed to concede in court papers, and in the argument of the Unemployed Peoples’ Movement (UPM), that the municipality was in a state of disaster in every sense from collapsed service provision to its finances.

But Mpahlwa said this was not the case they had wanted argued in court.

“We put together all the documentation and submitted it to our legal team.

“We are going back to them to try to understand why this information was not put forward to the court.”

He said he was confident an appeal would succeed when the appeal court heard the information that had been omitted.

The municipality does not get a second bite at the cherry when it comes to presenting fresh evidence.

A court of appeal can only consider the evidence that was before Stretch when she came to her decision.

Nevertheless, Mpahlwa said he was confident they would succeed on appeal as the judgment set a serious precedent which would mean almost every other municipal council in a similar situation faced dissolution.

The UPM’s Ayanda Kota was scathing in his response, saying the mayor’s statement bordered on the unethical.

“I reject what he says.

“You only have to live here to know nothing has improved.”