The DA and the Sakeliga business forum in Ditsobotla have accused the local municipality of failing to speed up service delivery and not adhering to a court order compelling it to submit progress reports.
In 2023, Sakeliga and the Centre for Good Governance and Social Justice nonprofit organisations took the North West municipality to the high court for its lack of service delivery.
The court ordered the council to file quarterly progress reports, but Sakeliga’s legal manager, Tian Alberts, said the reports were unsatisfactory. " [They] sugar-coat or otherwise skirt the salient issues regarding service delivery,” he said.
“The reports demonstrate no improvements in the affected towns, only ‘plans’ to fix service delivery. But the plans contain no credible detail how they will be implemented. The provincial executive has demonstrably been unable to intervene as required by the October 2023 court order.”
Ditsobotla has been under administration by the provincial government since 2021.
Alberts said Sakeliga was considering taking further steps and getting the intervention of the national government. "[According] to the court order, we are within our rights to amend our papers and return to court seeking relief to the effect that the national executive must now intervene,” he said.
DA councillor Willem Pretorius told Sowetan the municipality was in ICU. “They can already switch off the machine,” he said.
“There are huge problems in Ditsobotla and absolutely no service delivery. In a day, I receive about 50 to 70 complaints from the community, ranging from water issues to electricity and sewage. They phone me because I’m a councillor and they want answers, but I also don’t know who the mayor is now or the city manager is There has been no meeting or communication in the aftermath of the incidents last week [ where there were violent clashes, gunfire and injuries to municipal employees]".
EFF caucus leader in the North West provincial legislature, Primrose Bogatsu, said since the disbandment of the council and by-elections in 2023, Ditsobotla has had four mayors.
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