The council meeting was scheduled for 14:00 to consider appointing an acting chief financial officer and acting municipal manager. Both positions are critical to restoring administrative stability and securing the release of the municipality’s withheld equitable share allocation.

The Theunissen-based municipality still has no permanent municipal manager, who has been placed on special leave, and no CFO after the Free State High Court ruled former CFO Amos Makoae’s appointment unlawful. Municipal offices remain closed after workers downed tools over unpaid salaries.

DA Cllr Marietta Visser said the appointments were crucial because they were required to release the equitable share, allowing the municipality to pay salaries and resume services. She said the meeting could not proceed because the ANC’s absence left it without a quorum.

The failure to convene the sitting has delayed efforts to stabilise the municipality, leaving employees still waiting for their June salaries. Workers had been promised payment but instead received another letter informing them that the cash-strapped municipality could not meet its salary obligations.

Municipal management said the delay was caused by weak revenue collection, National Treasury’s withholding of the equitable share and the continued closure of municipal offices. The closure had further limited the municipality’s ability to collect revenue and generate additional income,it said.

Masilonyana is one of 16 Free State municipalities whose equitable share allocations were partly suspended by National Treasury for failing to comply with the Municipal Finance Management Act. Treasury said the municipalities had been warned and allowed to respond before the funds were withheld.

The municipality spends about R15m a month on salaries but collects only between R1.8m to R2m in monthly revenue. Its rates and taxes collection rate is about 20%, while debts to creditors, including the South African Revenue Service and employee pension funds, continue to increase.

Parliament’s Standing Committee on Public Accounts previously heard that Masilonyana allegedly owed third parties about R75m despite deducting pension contributions from workers’ salaries. Its bank accounts have also been attached several times, disrupting cash flow and causing repeated salary delays.

Residents have been hardest hit by the financial collapse, with several communities facing extended water and electricity interruptions. Mayor Dimakatso Modise previously acknowledged that the municipality had used its equitable share allocation, intended mainly for basic services, to pay employee salaries.

Masilonyana’s annual salary bill is about R168m, higher than its roughly R157m equitable share allocation. Serious concerns have also been raised about weak internal financial controls and the municipality’s ability to properly account for spending.

Officials had bypassed the municipality’s financial management system for years by processing transactions manually, former CFO Amos Makoae told Scopa. The practice raised further concerns about financial oversight as the municipality’s administrative, service delivery and salary crises continued to deepen.

OFM News/Kekeletso Mosebetsi cvdw

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