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Acting Municipal Manager, Mpumelelo Mnguni, who is in the far left of the picture, has committed to making a difference in the municipality.
The KwaZulu-Natal Department of Co-operative Governance has appointed an acting municipal manager to assist in the running of the embattled Nongoma Local Municipality.
This comes as four top officials from the municipality, the mayor, Clifford Ndabandaba, deputy mayor Sabelo Nkosi, Speaker Babongile Sithole, and Chief Financial Officer Njabulo Dludla have been charged with corruption.
Last week, the Pietermaritzburg High Court ruled against the municipality which wanted to defy an instruction by the department not to appoint the previous municipal manager who was deemed unqualified.
Mpumelelo Mnguni now steps in as the acting municipal manager.
MEC for COGTA in KwaZulu-Natal, Thulasizwe Buthelezi, says the municipality is already in a financial crisis, running on a R16 million overdraft.
He also expressed concern that the staff bill increased from 49% to 56% in June. He says Mnguni will be assisted by officials in the department.
” Our duty is to ensure that it (the municipality) is not affected by the imprisonment of these councillors and our meeting with the councillors went very well. And we introduced a new municipal manager to make sure that services such as water and refuse collection are unhindered by the situation of the arrests of these councillors.”
“We have appointed Mpumelelo Mnguni as the Acting Municipal Manager Mnguni is a seasoned local government practitioner with the necessary skills and experience to restore order” COGTA MEC, Rev Thulasizwe Buthelezi addresing Nongoma councillors. #SABCNEWS pic.twitter.com/LMWpUukIov
— Mlondi Radebe (@mlondiee) November 26, 2024
VIDEO| Buthelezi has applauded the police for making the arrests of the four officials:
The Acting Municipal Manager says he is committed to making the necessary changes.
“I am coming back here for the second time, I believe the four years I spent here I was able to leave a mark. It is safe to say it was an indelible mark. We never regressed, from the time we improved from the adverse of the audit opinion and good governance was embraced by all officials.”
Meanwhile, residents expressed concern about the future of the municipality.
” I still hope that this can change but only if leaders can listen to us as the youth. They must develop our town even if we are not around but we should be proud of our area,” says one resident.
Another resident says; ” In this municipality, they always elect the mayor and immediately after that, they turn against the mayor. What is that? They don’t come back to us as the community about their decision.”
The area of Nongoma has remained largely under-developed and has a high unemployment rate. The municipality has been beset by governance challenges for several years and is currently run by a coalition of the NFP, ANC and the EFF.
