The Demarcation Board has proposed that a new district municipality in the Free State be established. The board has also proposed that some of the towns or areas in the Mangaung Metro Municipality, such as Dewetsdorp, be removed and merged into the new municipality.

Some areas from other municipalities, such as Mantsopa, Brandfort (now Winnie Mandela Town), and Tokologo will be included in Mangaung. This was announced by the speaker of the metro, Lawrence Mathea. He said the board had expected a response from the council noting the receipt of the proposal by Wednesday (15/11). Public consultations are expected to commence soon.

’He was not shocked by the proposal’

However, the DA’s councillor Tjaart van der Walt asked that it be reported to the committee to be discussed further. He said he was not shocked by the proposal because the ANC was losing power in cities and this was a ploy to continue looting the municipalities.

The headquarters of the Mangaung Metro Municipality in Bloemfontein. Photo: Lucky Nkuyane

The proposals contained in the item are very consequential to every resident of Mangaung and the other municipalities and must be dealt with care. Amongst these are proposals to add Dealesville, exclude Naledi, re-include Dewetsdorp, and include Brandfort.

“The document emphasises the community of Brandfort is calling for incorporation, which indicates to me what the writer of the report wants the outcome of the process to be. Let residents be warned that when the DA was opposing the incorporation of Naledi into Mangaung, we warned Naledi residents their services would get worse and their municipal costs would rise, which is exactly what happened,” he said.

‘The committee must ensure a scientific feasibility study’

Van der Walt said the committee must ensure a scientific feasibility study must be done in conjunction with National Treasury to advise the council of the serious financial, and service delivery implications of any of the proposals.

“These decisions cannot be made haphazardly one year, adding one town and a few years later removing half again and adding other towns. To what end? Nationally combining failing municipalities only makes matters worse for all residents, but we know that these proposals are made for political reasons because the governing party is losing votes in cities and needs to include rural areas in cities to artificially retain power over the budgets of cities, even though the city is already stripped naked by looting,” he said.

OFM News/Lucky Nkuyane Corné/Daphné