Former Kimberley mayor ‘resigned to appease residents’

Former Sol Plaatje Mayor, Mangaliso Matika says he resigned to appease disgruntled Kimberley residents.

The Northern Cape provincial ANC announced Matika’s resignation on Monday.

For weeks, the municipality was engulfed by violent protests after residents demanded that Matika step down following a proposed electricity tariff hike of R260.

Matika says we scrapped the issue of the R260 increase but that is an issue that comes with consequences for the municipality.

He says: “The municiality had to put together a recovery plan and because of the unrest we were unable to implement the recovery plan. As a result of that, the municipality is running dry financially. I had to resign because services do not come cheap.”