This is to elect a new acting mayor. This comes after the legally embattled mayor, Dimakatso Modise, was suspended by her own ANC party following her arrest in March this year.

ALSO READ: ANC asks Free State mayor to step aside

Modise is charged with incitement of violence, which allegedly resulted in the home of then-mayor Kunatu Stephen Koalane’s parents being set alight amidst the violent unrest.

ALSO READ - #BreakingNews: Two FS politicians arrested

She was asked by the ANC's Interim Provincial Committee (IPC) to halt her duties both as the mayor and as a member of the Interim Regional Committee (IRC) with immediate effect. Modise is out on R2000 bail.

In leaked audio, Modise is heard informing her comrades that she was asked by the IPC to step aside through a zoom meeting. Her suspension from the party by the IPC comes a few weeks before the ANC in the province head to its Provincial Elective Conference to elect the new leadership.

In May the ANC Youth League in the Lejweleputswa Municipality called for Modise to be axed. The Lejweleputswa ANC Youth League regional chairperson, Mokgethi Setlhalefo, called on Modise, who is also the deputy regional coordinator of the interim structure, to do the right thing and step aside as per the ANC’s 54th 2017 Nasrec National Conference.

ALSO READ: ANC Youth League wants embattled FS mayor to step down

The municipality is among several in the province facing cash flow problems. In June, it failed to pay its workers and instead chose to offer them food vouchers as a method of relief.

ALSO READ: FS municipality offering food vouchers to unpaid workers

It is also among eleven ailing municipalities which have reportedly approached the provincial Departments of Treasury and Cogta for bailouts, merely two months after the start of the 2022/23 financial year.

ALSO READ: Eleven Free State municipalities beg for bailout

In June this year, the Auditor-General (AG), Tsakani Maluleke, told Members of Parliament (MPs) at the National Assembly (NA) during the release of her report on municipalities across the country, that three of the troubled Free State municipalities failed to submit their financial statements for the audit by the AG for the previous financial year.

She said the Trompsburg-based Kopanong, Qwaqwa-based Maluti-A-Phofung, and the Theunissen-based Masilonyana municipalities failed to furnish her with the financial statements as per the requirement. These municipalities are amongst many municipalities in the province that are failing to provide essential services to residents who are at most frustrated and angry with them for such failures. Maluleke said the irregular spending has since grown with almost R2 billion at municipalities across the province.

ALSO READ: Free State municipalities fail to submit documents to AG

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