Gauteng COGTA on state of Emfuleni Local Municipality

Meeting report

Ms D Direko (ANC) was asked to be the Acting Chairperson until the Chairperson's connection issues were resolved.

The Acting Chairperson said that during the Committee’s oversight, Members went to the Emfuleni Local Municipality and a lot of issues were raised that require attention. Members would like to receive clarity on the relationship between the provincial government and the South African Local Government Association (SALGA) because it seemed as if there was no proper consultation when the municipality was placed under section 139. Members need clarity on the lessons that have been learnt from the section 139 process, supply chain management and political interference in the administration of the municipality.

Briefing by Gauteng COGTA on the progress of the refocused intervention in Emfuleni Local Municipality

Mr Patrick Ngoepe, Chief Director: Municipal Infrastructure Support, Gauteng Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, said that the Department has continued the intervention with a refocused approach to address the following three specific areas: supply chain management, finance and service delivery. On supply chain management, the processes have been centralised and the establishment of the interim Bid Committees are currently being finalised. There are 44 bids awaiting evaluation and some of the projects are 12 months late. A programme has been developed to address this and the validity period has been extended. On finance, cost reflective tariffs are being developed and credit control measures are being introduced. The municipality is also in the process of finalising the budget readjustment and revised procurement plans. On service delivery, severe shortages of funding make it difficult to resolve most of the infrastructure challenges. Out of 14 pending litigation cases that were reviewed, nine are due for settlement and five have to follow the prescribed labour laws. On fraud and corruption cases, engagements are being held between the Accounting Officer and the Administrator to monitor progress on the outstanding matters that have to be considered by the Disciplinary Board. The Administrator, Executive Mayor, Municipal Manager (MM) and section 56 Managers report every Monday to the Member of the Executive Council (MEC) on target performance.

Briefing by Gauteng COGTA on the state of the Emfuleni Local Municipality

Mr Clive Maduna, Director: Municipal Performance Management, Gauteng Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, said that the section 139(1)(b) and (5) intervention has been extended as a result of the sanitation crisis and financial challenges. The municipality is unable to collect revenue and the majority of household debtors are from the township areas. There is poor financial management and a long-term trend of unfunded budgets. The overdue outstanding creditors, especially Eskom and Rand Water accounts, remain a huge problem. The relationship with industries and business remains fragile and needs to be resolved because it constitutes the largest paying customer group. On service delivery, there is a poor state of infrastructure assets across the service areas and this is compounded by the failure to spend grants. Sewer spillages has increased during the period of intervention, there is a significant backlog in refuse removal and the landfill air space is diminishing. Once the Vaal River is rehabilitated, it will provide several opportunities and tourism advantages. National support must be enhanced to resolve the pollution of the Vaal River, sewer spillages and to ensure the intervention is effective.

The Acting Chairperson asked members to raise questions and comments.

Discussion

Mr K Ceza (EFF) asked how the province will ensure that the municipality recovers and improves. Mr M Hoosen (DA) always talks about the basket issues which is the condition the municipality faces. Many of the issues raised in the presentation leave a lot to be desired. The Committee has met with the municipality but some of the issues raised haven't come out strongly in the presentation. There is a problem with the fact that the municipality has a Mayor that has lied to the Council. The Mayor has promised that section 139(1)(b) will be lifted on 4 November 2019. When the EFF counsellors ask him about this, he changes his statement again to say that he didn’t mean it will be lifted. He has committed to lifting section 139(1)(b) by a specific period but then states that he didn’t commit to it and that the systems in place have failed. It's clear from this that something is terribly wrong. Someone is remote controlling the Mayor in some way either politically or otherwise. There is political interference in what the Mayor says. How will this be fixed? There are many people who have been implicated in this matter. It is a problem that the Member of the Mayoral Committee (MMC) for Infrastructure, who is now the Acting Mayor, hasn't given the Council results or reports. She went to Mr Shabalala, a policeman, who advised her that there is no case when the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) said that projects were ruined from eight years ago. Mr Shabalala said that the CFO must be arrested just to embarrass him. This person is not used to being held accountable. That questions the capacity of the impact of the municipality.

Ms M Tlou (ANC) commended the municipality for its obligation on enhancing effective performance, building a good foundation to improve and perform its work and implementing an intervention by the province. The key challenges are financial matters, specifically the fact that the municipality did not perform well and obtain financial health. Investigations and reports discovered that there was unauthorised, irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure. It is important to receive quarterly reports from the municipality on financial recovery and strengthening governance in order to assess whether the intervention is working. Is the Department complying with the objective to strengthen governance? On the lack of proper oversight, was there any improvement after the engagement with the municipalities? On the inadequate control over daily and monthly processes, was there any improvement after the intervention? The municipality failed to implement tools for effective public participation. Is there any effective mechanism that's going to be provided so that there's improvement on the poor performance? The municipality is commended for training the councilors and officials on good governance, accountability and ethical conduct. This is what they are there for as politicians. Was there any good results or progress obtained after training the Councillors and officials? How much revenue was collected monthly? The MEC is commended for his performance, specifically on the involvement in the municipalities in Gauteng. His performance is going to yield positive results. If the municipality is failing, with no accountability and there is irregular and fruitless expenditure, accepting accountability for the province will yield good results.

Mr C Brink (DA) said that Emfuleni is a deeply dysfunctional municipality and is probably the worst in Gauteng by objective measures. It is also had a dysfunctional intervention process since 2018. There was not a new intervention. It is the same intervention and this was confirmed to the Committee when it conducted oversight visits to Emfuleni recently. Default judgment in the amount of R482 million was taken against Emfuleni by a service provider called BCX. The municipality’s main bank account was attached and there was a balance of R50 million. That leaves a massive judgment debt that can only be satisfied by attaching more of Emfuleni's assets including its other bank accounts. The details of this were revealed to members during the oversight visits. Emfuleni is in a serious cash flow crunch. Other creditors of the municipality including Eskom and Rand Water must be looking to see what is happening now, whether they should take the same action as BCX and start attaching municipal assets. It is a deeply problematic situation. Emfuleni might be one of the first municipalities that completely goes bankrupt after a financial recovery plan has been implemented and while under administration. Did the MEC find out about the default judgment of R482 million taken against the municipality in March already? There were further court processes in June. The answer by the Department was that the MEC only found out about it after the bank account was attached. This is stupendous. It is unbelievable that such a massive legal dispute preceded by letters of demand did not come to the attention of the MEC responsible for local government who advises the provincial executive on the state of intervention and who apparently meets with the administrators on a weekly basis. Is the MEC asleep at the wheel? What is he going to do to stop Emfuleni’s creditors from taking away the municipality piece by piece?

Mr Ceza asked the Gauteng province to provide a sense of how the municipality will be viable if the supply chain manager is untouchable because the Mayor, MECs and MMCs are in his pocket? There is a problem with interference. How will the municipality improve GEOD because currently it is faced with the issue of gender-based violence? The GEOD is not sitting in that municipality since 2016. How is that situation going to be improved? How will the empowerment of Councillors be improved? How will you improve Councillor Ncube who calls the Corporate Services Committee for only two purposes, firstly to announce the Christmas holidays and secondly to announce the upper limits in January? Is that Committee meant for that? Are members going to see a functional impact in that municipality and how so? What are the relevant things that members should see with the functionality of the impacts? Currently what is happening does not inspire confidence. What are the functions of the MM and how can one be employed when they do not possess the requisite skills? How will the municipality be functional and yield positive results? How are members going to see the corporates and parastatals paying that municipality so that it pays the debt to Eskom? If someone is suspended on a Friday, returns on a Monday and nothing happens afterwards, what are the consequences for a person who is suspended? In this municipality, members are not seeing consequences at all. It is a very dysfunctional municipality. There needs to be more than just a report provided to the Committee. The municipality must provide the timeframes as to how and where these things have been going on. There are no consequences for the Mayor and the MM as per the Council resolutions. 

Ms Direko said that there is an element of political interference in the municipality. How is the province going to deal with such issues? Where there is political interference, there is also a politically established situation. What is the financial status of the municipality? What are the lessons that it has learnt from the intervention? There was a newspaper article published recently this year and the heading of the article reads as follows: 'Emfuleni implicated in more than R870 million looting spree, but no action has been taken'. How true is this article and if it is, why was no action taken? The article indicates that it lost a large amount of money due to irregular expenditure, full valuation of the Municipal Finance Act, a duplication of payments and other things of a similar nature. What measures does the municipality have in place for financial recovery and consequence management? What is the relationship between the provincial Department and SALGA? When the decision to place the municipality under administration was taken, apparently there was no consultation between the two. If that was the case, can clarity be provided on this?

The Chairperson said that when the Committee visited the municipality, it could not hold the meeting at the municipality itself and it had to be moved to the districts due to community unrest. She said that she hopes the MEC is aware of the worrying level of public discontent in the municipality. The series of interventions by the provincial executive is an issue, particularly the intervention preceding the current one. It began with the resolution on 5 February 2019 where the executive committee approved the appointment of Mr Oupa Nkoane as Acting MM to implement section 139(1)(b) on behalf of the provincial government. Members were confused as to why it took the Department almost two years to realise that the appointment of the administrators were done incorrectly. The Committee also learnt that the provincial and national levels disagreed as to whether there should've been an administrator in the first place since section 139(1)(b) is not explicit on this. The fact that this happened between the two spheres of government is regrettable. Can the Department comment on this? The law is very precise on the consultation with SALGA including a recovery plan. This is a reality that was admitted by the MEC’s administrators. Some of the employees of the municipality and the unions who the Committee interacted with claimed to know nothing about the financial recovery plan. SALGA also failed to provide the quarterly progress report as required by legislation. The Municipal Finance Management Act (MFMA) envisages that SALGA would receive the quarterly progress report and there will be a consultation prior to the finalisation of a financial recovery plan. Can the MEC provide reasons on why these basic legislative requirements weren't met? There is a concern about the lack of consultation with SALGA on Emfuleni.

The Chairperson said that this is not an isolated incident. Despite the provincial government disputing it, it also happened in Tshwane. This suggests to the Committee that the Inter-Government Relations (IGR) system has broken down completely and raises questions around the capacity of the provincial Department to foster cooperative governance in line with its mandate. The default judgment against the municipality is financially catastrophic. Almost everyone in the municipality claims that they learnt about the default judgment from the media. The fact that this happened while the municipality is under intervention does not inspire confidence in the efficacy of the administration team. The intervention experience of Emfuleni is worrying because it also portrays a disturbing trend where the Department and its appointment of administrators is becoming part of the problem rather than the solution. This was also experienced in Kwa-Zulu Natal where the Mayor pointed an accusing finger to one of the provincial Department officials. This problem needs urgent attention. Can the MEC take this matter seriously because it is a matter of non-compliance with the actual intervention itself? There was a woman who became the subject of the mayoral committee who dealt with supply chain management. Can the MEC provide an honest and frank response as to whether he is receiving the necessary cooperation from the municipality or whether it is a tug of war? Many things are occurring while the administrators are there. The many incomplete projects of Emfuleni are concerning. The consequence of this is that communities are suffering and don not have access to services.

Ms H Mkhaliphi (EFF) agreed that the municipality's unfinished projects are concerning. Councillor Khethiwe, MMC of Infrastructure, does not have reports. She constantly provides feedback to the Committee on unfinished projects. Can the MEC provide clarity on this? Staff members alleged that they are not going to work because there is no personal protective equipment (PPE). This is concerning because of the increase of Covid-19 cases. The failure to receive PPE is going to make the situation worse. There is a company known as Comperio who has been the only company benefiting from the municipality. It is not the first time this company has been raised as an issue. The report on Comperio was swept under the carpet after the Council gave the Mayor the instruction to handle it. Does the MEC have a report on this company? The Committee could not conduct oversight at the municipality itself due to community unrest. Members need to seriously tackle and resolve the issues around the municipality.

Responses

Mr Lebogang Maile, Gauteng MEC for Human Settlements, Urban Planning and Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, replied that the intervention started in 2018. There were weaknesses when it was implemented. The municipality acknowledged this when it engaged with the Select Committee. There has been no new decision to intervene but rather an intention to fix the weaknesses. One of the things that was done in 2018 was to appoint the administrator as the MM. That was a weakness. In terms of the law, a MM accounts to the Council. The law doesn’t allow an administrator to be a MM. The weakness was that the intervention team was subject to the Council which is not allowed by law. The province was supposed to report either monthly or quarterly to the Select Committee, Minister, SALGA and the provincial executive council. SALGA was consulted in 2018 when the decision for intervention was taken. The municipality engaged with SALGA and the provincial executive committee. SALGA was up in arms, believing that the municipality didn't respect them, take them seriously and engage with them. The issues with SALGA were ironed out in the provincial executive committee meeting. It was a politically toxic environment. Some of the officials and politicians did not want the intervention to continue because they wanted the issues and weaknesses to continue. The municipality provided a report on its achievements despite the weaknesses. The fact that the situation is worse does not mean that there were no minor improvements. As an example, the municipality could not pay Eskom, rent or water but because of the intervention, the situation was able to improve.

MEC Maile replied that the municipality will improve by ensuring relations with stakeholders, such as SALGA and the Select Committee, are strengthened. The situation is being monitored weekly. The municipality has taken it upon themselves to ensure that the MEC does not depend on the administrators only. A hands-on approach is required. On the matter of the Mayor telling lies, the municipality is not running the Council. The Council is the highest decision-making body and if the Mayor misleads it, there is a code of conduct which outlines the roles of everyone. The MEC cannot take action without any progress being taken by the Council. The municipality has intervened to deal with finance, supply chain and infrastructure because that is where the problems lie. The Mayor himself has asked the municipality to do so because of the political influences. There is nothing the MEC can do about the political influence because politicians are acting in their own right, space and sphere of government. The Supreme Court of Appeal judgment on Tshwane provides interesting remarks on the role of the province but the Constitutional Court is still going to decide on this matter. When the MEC intervenes it becomes about power. He said that he wasn’t in the meeting regarding the intervention but the municipality is not only under section 139(b), it is also under section 195. It’s a toxic environment because he is receiving complaints from Councillors who claim their lives are being threatened. There are factions that find expression in the municipality. The good thing about the Tshwane decision is that the administrators must be withdrawn because they are still on the payroll. They can be used elsewhere because they have done well in Tshwane. They are leaving that municipality with a surplus of R1 billion and the skills some of them possess come in handy in Emfuleni. The plan is to reinforce that team and to not be subjected to the factions that exist in the Council.

MEC Maile replied that the team stopped the deviations in supply chain, improved the procurement of electrical cables and public participation. They will work with the Speaker and the Council. On the training of Councillors, their capacity is a matter of timing and will depend on how responsibilities are discharged in the various areas and monthly collection. The municipality was at 74% collection at some point but Covid-19 brought about a lot of problems. The R800 million comes from 2017 and Comperio was brought on specifically to investigate it. The report contained clear recommendations and a delay in the disciplining of officials. Discipline is the responsibility of the Council and MM. The municipality does not have that authority and it cannot charge anyone. On the municipality being dysfunctional, the MEC doesn’t run municipalities and doesn’t have that power unless the municipality is dissolved. On the default judgment, there was a court process where the papers were hidden from the Mayor by an official. That official has resigned. The MEC could not have known because he does not go around courts asking about the matters of municipalities. If the matter was brought to his attention earlier he would have dealt with it. He said that he is very much awake and does not sleep on the job. Its disingenuous to expect him to know every detail about every municipality. The Deputy Director-General met with the company and agreed to deal with the issue to prevent creditors eating at the municipality piece by piece. The issue of creditors applies to all municipalities. In Tshwane, there is R6 billion rent litigation as a result of illegal political decisions that were made by the administration. On GEOD, if it is not functioning then the municipality will be advised on it. There is a thin line between oversight and interference. The Constitutional Court judgment is going to have serious ramifications for the legal architecture of local government in South Africa. The interventions have brought to the fore a lot of weaknesses in the legislation. If a Councillor abuses their power, the best that can be done is to reprimand them and encourage them not to abuse their power.

MEC Maile replied that he doesn’t know about the MM's qualifications because he is not involved in the recruitment process. The Council would be the best body to answer this question. Eskom is being continuously engaged with on how it collects directly from municipalities. In big municipalities, there is a problem because the collection rate is high. On consequence management, the leadership of the municipality must ensure its effective. On timeframes, it would be misleading to tell members that the municipality will pay the R2 billion to Eskom next year or next week. It depends on money being collected and the municipality has competing priorities. It owes rent and water in the amount of R600 million. It might need to ask for a bailout because the problems are systematic and started many years ago. It also might have to retrench people but this will have serious consequences. The MM will have to be disciplined but not by the MEC himself. The MM reports to the Mayor and Council and not to the MEC. On the account being attached, he said that he does not know how it happened because it's not possible to know about everything. On the relationship with SALGA, it needs to be improved and bettered. There has been an agreement to hold regular meetings to discuss a range of issues. The public discontent in Emfuleni exists because of service delivery challenges. The sewerage crisis is being dealt with by the Minister of Water and Sanitation. A committee has been established to set aside a budget and involve other departments to help with the crisis. On the intervention, he was told that Department officials didn’t want the intervention in the first place and that may be the reason why it was not done properly. The MM was appointed and SALGA wasn’t consulted. There was no new decision to intervene because the decision to intervene was taken in 2018. The question is whether there must be consultation with SALGA when an administrator is deployed. Consultation should be welcomed because SALGA understands the space better and can provide people who can help in the municipalities. The IGR system is not collapsed but rather there are weaknesses.

MEC Maile replied that there has not been an appointed administrator who does not possess a degree or qualifications in a specific area. On the woman being the subject of the mayoral committee, he said that he doesn’t have knowledge about it but did receive a complaint about her from one of the MMC's. The administrator has been asked to look at the issue and investigate it. If there is any inappropriate action on her part, she will be removed. On incomplete projects, the municipality will have to answer on how much has been spent. A forensic investigation could be conducted so that people are held accountable. On the lack of PPE provided to staff members, it is a Human Resources function. There is no excuse for the municipality not to provide PPE and this issue will be attended to. On Comperio, this company was contracted by the municipality two years ago to deal with investigations of unauthorised, irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure. A report has been presented and many officials are implicated in it. He said that he does not have knowledge of any other work the company is doing in the municipality. The supply chain manager has taken over in a way that he is not subjected to or held ransom by any officials. It is not a concern of how powerful he is but rather that supply chain processes comply with the law. This is the instruction that is given to administrators. Things will turn around especially now that there has been an intervention. There is confidence in the capacity to do the work because the manner in which municipalities are supported have changed. Instead of focusing on section 154, the support is proactive and does not wait for problems. The Committee will be constantly updated if there is a need to ramp up the intervention.

Discussion

Mr Ceza said that the responses provided by the MEC reminds him of a rap song titled 'it wasn’t me'. The MEC claims to have no knowledge of what is going on which gives rise to the question of concurrence. Are senior managers in municipalities not appointed concurrently with the MEC? What informs the MEC's approach of not having knowledge on the issues? The questions raised by members are rooted in the urge to correct the situation and see the remedial actions put in place, particularly in Emfuleni because its Chairperson is in the Intensive Care Unit. The issues on paper are even worse in reality. He said that he saw that a woman at the municipality is barred from working with the municipality. This is concerning because of the fact that women in South Africa have not been given a chance in the workplace and to receive a salary. How, at this time when women are free, does this happen? Comperio has four directors. One of them is Mr Isaac Mashaba, a very well-known person in Gauteng and a close friend to the former Mayor. The current provincial Secretary in 2018, Ms Rosina Masha, is a close relative to Mr Mashaba. She joined Comperio as a non-executive director and this was mainly to safeguard the interest of Mr Mashaba who was initially a director but had to be removed to cover up a link between Comperio and the former Mayor. This kind of scenario needs to be a thing of the past. What remedial actions are being taken to permanently arrest this kind of situation? We cannot say that the situation exists and we must accept it as God sent because it's politics. It cannot be like this because people are affected by it. People are at the centre of these things and it must be remembered that people are affected when someone is not qualified,  is not attending the Council meetings, does not account to anyone and is untouchable.

Mr Brink said that the question raised to the MEC on the legal dispute and default judgment against Emfuleni in October 2020 is not about things that happened before his appointment as the MEC or about things outside of his power. Emfuleni's financial department is under provincial administration. It is not an academic issue. The default judgment and its implications for Emfuleni are current. The summons was issued in March when Mr Maile was the MEC responsible for local government in Gauteng. Emfuleni, as it still is today, was under provincial administration in March. The default judgment was taken when Mr Maile was the MEC responsible for local government and when Emfuleni and its finances were under provincial administration. The Committee was told that the MEC meets on a weekly basis with administrators. Presumably he does so to advise the provincial executive of what is going on in Emfuleni as well as other municipalities where the provincial government has stepped in because the local authority cannot fulfil its constitutional obligations. The MEC has said that he is not quite sure and nobody knew about this legal dispute. His response is an incredible admission by the Gauteng provincial department that a dispute of this size, that can quite literally gulp up all of the bank accounts and money that Emfuleni has to pay its staff, Councillors, Eskom and Rand Water, if BCX decides to attach the assets was not known. The response that nobody knew about it is an admission of incompetence that should make the provincial and national executive really consider what is going on in Emfuleni.

Mr Brink said that aside from the laissez faire response provided by the MEC on the massive legal dispute, the question of what happens to the debt, creditors and the cash flow situation of Emfuleni remains unanswered. This is not an academic matter but a practical issue. What can happen if a municipality goes bankrupt, all of its money has been depleted and there is nothing left to bail anyone out? What happens if Eskom cuts the electricity supply to Emfuleni? What happens to rates, taxes, businesses and jobs? What happens if BCX attaches the other bank account that is used to pay salaries this month? These are serious and immediate issues. If Mr Maile does not have the authority and cannot answer these concerns, the Committee needs to ask the Gauteng provincial government what value he is currently adding in the municipality. What function is he fulfilling if all he does is wash his hands? He said that he can only wonder what is going on in the heads of the administrators deployed in the municipality if their political principal is washing his hands of the situation and saying that if they were to leave Emfuleni, they are happy to do so. What does that do to their authority, their relationship with officials, their ability to determine the course of events and to steer this intervention towards a successful end? It's devastating. The Director-General of national COGTA is present in the meeting but unfortunately the Deputy Minister isn’t. is it not time for the national government to intervene in Emfuleni? Section 139(7) provides that if a province fails at an intervention or fails to perform its intervention functions then national government must step into the shoes of the province and ensure that the executive obligations in fact get done. Can the national department indicate whether a section 139(7) intervention in Emfuleni is being considered to take this problem off the hands of Gauteng who clearly cannot deal with it? 

Ms Mkhaliphi agreed with the comments raised by Mr Ceza and Mr Brink. The MEC kept saying that he does not run the municipality but he is the political head of the municipality when things go wrong. The MEC is looked to for assistance in a situation like the municipality faces. His general powers, provided for in section 125(2), state that he exercises his executive authorities through a wide range of responsibilities that include implementing national and provincial laws, developing and implementing provincial policy and coordinating the functions of provincial administration. If the MEC is going to keep saying that he does not run the municipality then it is worrying. There is a crisis now and it affects people on the ground. The only option is to go and be decisive as a political head. The national COGTA must also play a meaningful role in the situation because it is very clear that the municipality has lost the plot of fighting corruption. This has a direct effect on the implementation of service delivery on the ground. The MEC kept saying that he is not involved but in terms of the Constitution, he must run the affairs of the municipality. On concurrence, when senior managers are appointed, the MEC must be involved and play the political role as head of the Department.

The Chairperson asked what the substantive provincial support measures are in real time. On the number of people deployed and assigned, how much has the province spent so far in trying to help this municipality? The current administration is a continuation of the previous one. On the woman who is the subject of the mayoral committee, are you getting the necessary cooperation from the municipality so that you are not constantly told that the issue belongs to the Council? What is the actual purpose of the intervention? The intervention is supposed to stabilise the municipality but under the circumstances, what are the actual assessments? Will this administration really use the positive results? There are things that have been happening such as the supply chain issues. What are the terms and references of all the administrators that have been put in Emfuleni? The woman administrator who was the subject of the mayoral committee was very honest with the Committee and provided feedback on the progress. She was deployed to deal with stabilisation. It seems that instead of the situation improving, it's worsening. What is the response to the unauthorised, irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure that has rocketed during the tenure of administration to over R1.1 billion? The MEC is a successor in law because when he assumed responsibility, he also inherited the liabilities. Can you proudly say that the intervention is working? Administrators are met with weekly to provide updates but the situation doesn’t seem to be improving. One of the administrators will raise the issue of incomplete projects. Is there a plan to deal with all of the issues?

Responses

MEC Maile replied that there is a rap song by Tupac Shakur who states that people are like roses that grow from concrete. This is more appropriate for the situation we find ourselves in. He said that he never said he does not know what has happened but he would not know what is happening in the courts. There is an example of another department whose account was attached and it was dealt with. All of the issues that come to his attention are attended to. The appointment of senior managers whose qualifications are under correction are hired by the MM. The Constitution and regulations govern what the MEC can and cannnot do. The MEC's used to concur when managers were appointed but there was a court decision which nullified this. The managers appointments are taken to the Council and the Council takes a resolution. The MEC does not concur on the appointment of senior managers anymore. Before the court judgment, the Mayor of Johannesburg was supposed to have submitted for concurrence and it was in the media that he did not. The main appointment of managers are now approved by the Council. The issue of the woman who has been barred from working with the municipality will be followed up on. On Mr Mashaba, was the process of appointing Comperio done properly? Everyone has friends everywhere. If Mr Mashaba drinks with the former Mayor then it is not the municipality's problem. The problem for the municipality is whether officials abused the process or stole money from the municipality. If this is the case, then it will be attended to.

MEC Malie replied that Mr Brink is disingenuous and consistent with the DA's narrative about incompetence. How is it incompetent if information is hidden? He said that he was not aware of the matter until the Tshwane decision was handed down. He added that if he knew about it, he would have stopped it in time. If the Sheriff of the court served him with papers he would have responded immediately. The national COGTA is welcomed to intervene because as much help as possible is needed. The problem is systemic and it has to be understood properly. There was a weakness with the intervention but there has been some improvement. The official who hid the information has subsequently resigned. The administrators must receive and pass on information otherwise the MEC would not be able to act. On consequence management, there is slow movement. The State Attorney is being used and had a meeting with Rand Water and the Minister of Water and Sanitation. There were also two meetings with the CEO of Eskom and Minister Pravin Gordhan. The team of administrators are very inspired and involved. The substantive provincial support measures have been presented to the Committee. The municipalities are run by the Council and the Constitution is clear that the executive and legislative authority of a municipality rests with the Council. Factions in the municipality are not being entertained.

MEC Maile replied that the woman administrator has not raised shenanigans. The issue was highlighted to members just to show that it's being dealt with. The municipality is cooperating and there has not been any defiance. The only problem is that there is a lot of disingenuousness, squabbling and plotting in the municipality. On the increase of unauthorised, irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure, one of the reasons it has continued is because of how the intervention is done. The way things were happening was as if there was no intervention. The MM would sign the deviations. The intervention is being strengthened and in the upcoming auditing financial year, the increase of such expenditure will no longer be the case. On incomplete projects, it will be looked at how much was spent, who was appointed, the reason for the delay, whether there has been inflation and value for money. These are historic projects that will be investigated.

Mr Brink said that the only remaining question is for national COGTA. Are you considering a section 139(7) intervention which is the case if the province fails in its duties? He said that he is not referring to general cooperation and support but specifically the provision of taking over the administration from the province.

Mr Themba Fosi, Director-General, National Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, replied that national COGTA is working with the province based on the current intervention. Officials are participating in the work streams and will do everything in their power to ensure support is provided to turnaround the municipality. Section 139(7) is a different matter that cannot be responded to at the level of working with the province.

The Chairperson said that it is not warranted for national COGTA to invoke section 139(7) because officials are working together with the province. The MEC is commended for committing to update members on the reality of things which are not good at the moment. The Committee must appreciate that the previous intervention was not done correctly. It takes leadership to admit this and the MEC has taken full responsibility on the matter. Officials have committed to ensuring that the municipality becomes functional because it is the people on the ground who are suffering when political leadership fails to do what it is supposed to. At the end of the day, Members want to see results and that the intervention works.

The meeting was adjourned.