Merafong Councillors and staff fleecing the people’s municipality

At a Council meeting of the disaster prone Merafong Municipality this week, it transpired that Member of the Mayoral Committee G.M Sello has allegedly been living in a Council house for more than a year without paying rent, services or rates and taxes. According to the Municipal Finance Management Act (MFMA), municipal properties must be rented out at market-related prices.

The Democratic Alliance’s written questions about the Merafong rental stock have remained unanswered since November 2016. It is clear that the Gauteng Provincial Government and Merafong Council have something to hide.

According to reports tabled in Council, four Merafong councillors are in arrears on their municipal accounts, owing almost R54 000 to the people of Merafong. Staff members are even worse, with a total of 12 staff members owing more than R160 000 to the people of Merafong.

The prospect of recovering the money is dwindling daily because Merafong has failed to appoint a service provider to perform debt collection. The previous service provider, Trifecta’s contract came to an end on 31 May 2017.

To compound this untenable situation, expenditure on overtime is sitting at 238% of the budget; capital expenditure is only 54%; Council is out of pocket by 19% just for the month of June alone and; outstanding invoices to debtors sits at R1,2 billion at end of June 2017.

No municipality can survive when it spends more money than it receives every month.

The ANC did not take kindly to robust discussion about these figures in Council. Debate was completely shut down when a councillor was forcibly removed from the chamber.

The DA will request that the MEC for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Paul Mashatile, investigate the abuse and theft of the people’s resources and money.