North West Municipal boundary demarcations: DA in support for JB Marks split, oppose amalgamations
26 April 2023
The DA has interrogated each of the 16 Class 2 to 4 municipal boundary changes in North West and has made submissions to the Municipal Demarcation Board (MDB) indicating our support or opposition to them. Download submissions here.
The DA North West’s Provincial Executive Council met and adopted the Party's position on each of the redeterminations after submissions were received from local DA structures in affected municipalities.
The bulk of the redeterminations is the inclusion and/or exclusion of sizeable farm portions from one municipality to another, but there are four critical redeterminations that we have considered extensively.
Split of JB Marks (DEM8001)
The DA fully supports the split of the JB Marks Local Municipality along the old Tlokwe and Ventersdorp municipal boundaries. The DA during the Section 26 process preceding the 2016 local government elections vehemently opposed this merger on the grounds that it would further deteriorate service delivery, not only in Ventersdorp, but in the then-functional Potchefstroom.
Today, communities in Potchefstroom and Ventersdorp are far worse off and receive far less service delivery. The financial situation of the JB Marks municipality has also deteriorated, while fraud and corruption continue unabated.
The argument that the amalgamation of Potchefstroom and Ventersdorp would have improved governance and service delivery has now been proven false and the DA’s opposition to the amalgamation is vindicated, seven years later. But we knew that this would happen and this merger in 2016 was only engineered by the ANC to prevent the DA from governing the Tlokwe Local Municipality with an outright majority.
Split of Madibeng Local Municipality (DEM8021)
The DA supports, in principle, the split of the Madibeng Local Municipality into two municipalities, however, the proposed split of Madibeng Wards 7,28,29 and 30 into a new single local municipality does not make geographical sense.
The Magaliesberg divides the proposed new municipality and disconnects Wards 7 and 28 from 29 and 30.
The DA will make a submission to the MDB to consider including Ward 33 which connects directly with Wards 29 and 30 into the new municipality. In short, every area south of the Magaliesberg, including a small portion of Ward 7, should be incorporated into the new municipality.
Excluding Ward 33 would be detrimental to the viability of the new municipality since this ward already holds the necessary municipal infrastructure, including municipal offices, water and sewerage plants, and the required socio-economic infrastructure to sustain a municipality.
Amalgamation of Rustenburg and Kgetlengrivier (DEM8006) and Tswaing, Mahikeng and Ratlou (DEM8017) Local Municipalities
The DA opposes the proposed merger of the Rustenburg and Kgetlengrivier local municipalities as well as the amalgamation of the Tswaing, Mahikeng, and Ratlou local municipalities.
Another argument making the rounds is that the merger of Rustenburg and Kgetlengrivier is in preparation for acquiring a metro status municipality in North West. This is a futile dream, most residents in these two municipalities would not be able to afford the metro rates, taxes, and tariffs, and neither does the dire financial situation and audit outcomes of both municipalities indicate any capacity or capability to function as a metro.
Much like the argument used for the merger of Ventersdorp and Potchefstroom previously, the argument goes that these two mergers will improve governance, service delivery, and revenue collection.
As we have seen with the state of collapse in JB Marks, merging these municipalities will do nothing to improve the lived reality of residents.
In fact, the only tangible change that could improve service delivery in North West is for residents to vote the corrupt and incompetent ANC out and vote in a DA-led government.
Moses Kotane Local Municipality
We also oppose the exclusion of potentially viable economic zones from, and the inclusion of more rural areas to, the Moses Kotane Local Municipality. It appears that there is a deliberate attempt here to ensure that Moses Kotane remains a largely dysfunctional rural municipality through the exclusion of potentially viable economic areas.
The ANC’s electoral support is under threat in Rustenburg, and it appears that these redeterminations from Moses Kotane seek to increase ANC representation in Rustenburg. These kinds of proposed redeterminations will increase as the ANC continues to lose electoral support in urban and peri-urban areas and it must be opposed.
Conclusion
The process for the demarcation of municipality boundaries is necessary from time to time to better align them with population growth and economic development, to ensure quality basic service delivery, but the bulk of the redeterminations in North West fails to consider the legislative requirements under Sections 24 and 25 of the Municipal Demarcation Act.
The DA has also noted some concerns with the MDB’s Section 26 process in North West. Particularly the information the MDB considered as per Sections 24 and 25 was not made readily available for public interrogation and neither did the Board publish a notice in any of the community newspapers in the province inviting public comment. Only a single notice was published in the Daily Sun on 28 March 2023 which is exclusionary to many communities throughout the North West, especially in rural areas where the publication’s reach is very limited.
The DA in North West will follow the process closely to ensure that the MDB considers all submissions and where necessary call for public participation and/or further investigations on the viability of the proposed redetermination, and that crucially, it accommodates the interests of residents.
As part of the DA’s whole-of-society approach, we call on residents, traditional councils, ratepayers associations, NGOs, NPOs, and business chambers to make their own submissions to the MDB before the closing date of 29 April 2023. Objection forms can be downloaded here.
Issued by Leon Basson, DA North West Provincial Leader, 26 April 2023
