Failure by Public Works to pay municipal accounts sabotages service delivery

30 May 2017

The failure by the Free State Provincial Department of Public Works to pay the municipal accounts for rates and taxes on the properties under its management severely hampers service delivery.

At last count, the Department owes Free State municipalities more than R500 million in accrued debt for rates and services.

One such instance is with the Department of Education’s Thabo Mofutsanyana District Office. Staff members at this office are unable to perform their duties as the building has been without electricity for several days now. Electricity supply has been cut off allegedly due to the non-payment of the property’s electricity bill.

This district office services hundreds of schools in the Setsoto, Maluti-a-Phofung, Phumelela, Nketoana, Dihlabeng, and Mantsopa local municipalities. Schools and teachers are dependent on this office for administrative and HR-related assistance. It is also from here that textbooks, workbooks and examination papers are dispatched.

The closure of this district office, even for a few days, negatively impacts on the delivery of education. It is not surprising that neither Education MEC, Tate Makgoe, nor Public Works MEC, Dora Kotzee, have intervened as yet to ensure the office becomes operational without delay.

I will submit written questions to MEC Kotzee asking for the total debt owed by the Department to each municipality in the Free State, including details of the Department’s payment plans for this financial year to settle the debt.

This is another example of how the ANC at provincial government level undermines service delivery on the ground, which compounds the problem of poor governance by ANC-led municipalities. It is a vicious cycle that robs services from the people, especially the poor.

Service delivery in health, education, social services and infrastructure development and maintenance will increasingly fall by the wayside as the ANC implodes.

If the people of the Free State want a responsible and responsive government, that improves people’s lives through quality service delivery, they will have to vote for the only party that has the policies and the skills to bring that change. They will have to vote DA in 2019.

Issued by Leona Kleynhans, DA Member in the Free State Provincial Legislature, 30 May 2017