The chairperson of the Standing Committee on Provincial Public Accounts (Scopa), Job Dliso, says the municipality had failed to appear before the committee on several attempts.

"The committee has resolved to summon the mayor, speaker and senior management of the Bojanala Platinum District Municipality to appear before the committee to account on allegations of financial misconduct," he said.

The meeting was planned for Wednesday.

He said the committee has the power to summon people to appear before it, in terms of Section 14 of the Powers, Privileges and Immunities of Parliament and Provincial Legislatures Act, 2004 (Act No 24 of 2004).

"Failure to attend the meeting by people who have been summoned, is a criminal offence, punishable upon conviction, by a fine and imprisonment as contemplated in Section 17 of the Act," Dliso said.

The municipality failed to pay workers' salaries in September and October.

Independent Municipal and Allied Trade Union (Imatu) said the lack of political leadership plunged the municipality into financial difficulties.

Gladwell Rangata, union branch secretary, said according to information at the union's disposal, suspended municipal manager Pogiso Shikwane and chief financial officer Olga Ndluvu implicated the mayor Fetsang Molosiwa in their representations stating their reasons not to be suspended.

He said the two allegedly stated that they used the R134 million erroneously transferred to Bojanala in March 2018, following the instructions from the mayor.

"People [workers] are playing political games with our lives here, the reports, as a reply why they should not be suspended, the municipal manager and the chief financial officer implicated the mayor because they said they used R134 million as per the instruction of the mayor, however, the mayor is still in her office even though she failed to provide leadership," he said.

"Today the district cannot provide services, the district cannot support local municipalities as it should... It is clear that we are in this mess because of a lack of leadership from our executive mayor."

Shikwane and Ndlovu have been suspended on alleged misconduct that landed the municipality in deep financial trouble.

Last week, municipal spokesperson Archie Babeile said processes were underway to ensure that salaries were paid. The first option was to request the early release of the equitable shares trench by the national treasury and the second option was for the municipality to apply for an overdraft facility of R50 million from a commercial bank.

African News Agency