This is according to the provincial Cogta spokesperson, Ntai Mokhitli, who told OFM News that the only thing Khoabane now needs from the Council is a date on when they will meet so he will be able to communicate the processes which will now be followed and implemented as he sets out to invoke Section 106 of the Municipal Systems Act on the municipality. OFM News’ Pulane Choane reports that Mokhitli said all this follows after teams from his department and the provincial treasury department looked into these allegations and presented a damning diagnostic report which led him to this decision.

The report followed after violent protests took place in November last year in Welkom, which is the seat of the municipality. Municipal employees belonging to the South African Municipal Workers Union (Samwu) made headlines, as revealed to OFM News, that their third-party benefit policies had lapsed after months of non-payment by the municipality, despite it taking the amounts for these policies off the employees’ salaries every month.

Tensions have since calmed down at the municipality, however, unions are still adamant that the Mayor, Nkosenjani Speelman, as well as the municipal manager, Thabiso Tsoaeli, and the municipality’s Chief Financial Officer, Thabo Panyani, to step down from the offices they occupy. Mokhitli would not go into whether or not Cogta FS would be removing Speelman as the mayor, but stated that throughout this process, these unions, as well as the as South African Local Government Association (Salga), Parliament, the Ministers of Cogta and Finance, the Speaker of the Free State Legislature, and the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) were a part of the consultative process Khoabane embarked on prior to reaching is decision to place the municipality under administration.

OFM News