Ditsobotla Local Municipality Mayor Molefe Morutse at an ANC community meeting in Itsoseng.
ANC/Supplied
- The newly elected Ditsobotla mayor says things are so bad in the municipality that it collects as little as R50 revenue sometimes.
- He says he can’t blame residents for not paying rates because they have not been receiving services.
- His number one priority is to ensure that the municipality collects revenue and becomes liquid.
The Ditsobotla Local Municipality in Lichtenburg in the North West sometimes collects as little as R50 revenue, according to its mayor, Molefe Morutse.
He was speaking at a community meeting that was held in Itsoseng as part of the build-up to the ANC’s 114th birthday celebrations at Moruleng Stadium on Saturday.
Notorious for instability and dysfunction, Ditsobotla has long been considered the poster child of troubled municipalities.
When he spoke to News24 at the community meeting this week, he revealed the municipality’s dire financial state: “We are able to collect R50 sometimes monthly; R100; R500. I’m telling you a real story here.”
For years, Ditsobotla was mired in chaos.
According to Morutse, residents stopped paying rates because services were not delivered.
READ | ‘Ditsobotla is a crime scene’: North West’s troubled municipalities face fresh scrutiny
And at the meeting, Itsoseng residents raised familiar grievances: uncollected refuse, a lack of refuse bins, water shortages, and electricity failures.
Morutse admitted the municipality was struggling and said he had appealed for provincial and national intervention, citing a lack of resources.
But the newly elected mayor believes the tide is turning.
“The soul of this municipality was dead, and we are reviving it. We can’t blame them,” he added.
“Now we have been talking to the people here, the nurses, teachers, and we said to them, we are giving you services. You are getting water, we are collecting refuse sometimes, sometimes we give you the services for sewage and services for the property.”
The Ditsobotla Local Municipality offices in Itsoseng.
Bongekile Macupe/News24
“We are saying to them, come back to us and pay. So they have started paying…They have started coming in and made arrangements with us to pay their current account,” he said.
Morutse has tabled a plan before the council offering residents a 60% rebate.
“We are saying to them that if they settle the other 40%, we will be able to work with them going forward, and the municipality will be able to have money, and we will be able to patch potholes, and we will be able to do other services,” he said.
His number one priority is to ensure that the municipality collects revenue and becomes liquid.
Morutse blamed the years of dysfunction on political intolerance.
As recently as September, Ditsobotla had two mayors, two speakers, and rival municipal managers, with each claiming to have been rightfully elected and claiming authority.
During a visit from the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta), the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa), and the Standing Committee on the Auditor-General in September, it also emerged that Ditsobotla had eight bank accounts.
Cogta MEC Oageng Molapisi called the municipality a “crime scene”.
READ | ‘Stop lying to us’: Angry North West residents lash ANC during Mashatile visit
North West Premier Lazarus Mokgosi, who also spoke to News24 on the sidelines of the community meeting, echoed Molapisi’s sentiments and said the provincial government believed there was a “serious syndicate” in the municipality, which is currently under administration.
Mokgosi believes that the police, Hawks, and National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) also need to intervene.
He criticised supply chain processes and added that “you find even outside people directly involved, business people”.
“… this is just not a normal situation. We needed a multidisciplinary approach to uproot the corruption level that is here,” he added.
READ MORE | Ditsobotla municipal workers paid after three-month delay
ANC deputy president Paul Mashatile spoke at the community meeting and urged unity and support for Morutse.
“We don’t want Ditsobotla to be the poster child of a bad place where comrades are fighting and not working for the community. You must support this mayor and his team. He is not the mayor of a faction,” Mashatile said.
He acknowledged Ditsobotla’s bad reputation, even at Luthuli House:
Everybody making an example [of] a bad municipality mentions Ditsobotla. I want that to come to an end. I want Ditsobotla to become the best municipality. And it can happen if you support each other, help each other, and work together.
Mashatile promised national government support and said ministers would be sent to assist.
“If our municipality succeeds, the communities become better. At the end of the day, government is about the people. You cannot have a good government if the people are not happy,” he said.
