This is according to the DA provincial leader, Patricia Kopane during her visit to Parys earlier today. Kopane is joined by party leader Mmusi Maimane to engage the residents of Tumahole in Parys and share the party’s agenda for change ahead of the May 8 elections. 

Their visit to the former Free State premier Ace Magashule’s home town comes just days after the DA marched to the office of the Free State premier with empty buckets to highlight poor services by Free State municipalities and the plight faced by people in rural areas living without basic services such as running water. 

Kopane says their visit to this financially troubled municipality has painted a bleak picture of how municipalities in the province are in dire straits and the brunt Free State residents have to bear.

Ngwathe Municipality is currently one of the Free State municipalities highly indebted to Eskom. It owes the power utility almost R 1 billion. The municipality, which includes the towns of Edenville, Heilbron, Koppies, Parys, and Vredefort is listed in the latest Auditor-General (AG) report amongst the 18 Free State municipalities needing urgent intervention. Municipalities in the province collectively owe Eskom more than R7.8 billion, making it a province with the highest debts and defaulting municipalities.

Kopane says municipalities' failure to provide basic services compromises all public sectors including private businesses in the area, which adds to the high unemployment rate.

According to the latest Quarterly Labour Force Survey released by Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) Free State is amongst the top provinces with high unemployment rate. Meanwhile, there are 38.1-million people of working age(15-64) in the country and of this number, 16.5-million are employed, 6.1-million are unemployed and 12.6 million are not economically active due to a variety of reasons including being discouraged by seeking for jobs to no avail.

Kopane says many of the  municipalities also lacks employees with required skills due to cadre deployment rife in the Free State.  

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