Confiscated seven vehicles of the controversial Madibeng Local Municipality in Brits in North West were returned after the municipality paid just over half a million rand of a three million rand debt.
The sheriff of the court stormed the municipal offices on Thursday morning and impounded the vehicles after the municipality failed to pay service providers. They include a law firm and a tyre manufacturing company.
The embattled Madibeng local municipality has been in the news for all the wrong reasons.
In 2013, four people were shot and killed by police while marching to municipal offices to demand water.
In 2018, employees reported that their salaries were not paid.
The South African Municipal Workers Union’s provincial treasurer Vicky Vezi says they are shocked as this comes hardly a week after workers’ salaries were delayed.
“We are very disturbed by what is happening in Madibeng. I mean it’s an event that’s happening every week. Last week we were shocked workers did not receive their salaries on time. Today, we understand the sheriff is attaching seven cars as we speak. We are told that they owe the attorneys about 2 million, and a tyre company R600 000. We are very much disturbed with the events that are happening in Madibeng.”
The municipality says the confiscated vehicles were returned after the service provider was paid.
Municipal spokesperson Tumelo Tshabalala confirmed that the vehicles have been returned.
“We were able to engage with the sheriff herself and then following that we were able to make a payment and then all our vehicles were returned to the yard and then they are busy on the road delivering services. Look it was an amount of close to R580 000.”
Meanwhile, the Democratic Alliance (DA) in the council accuses municipal officials of failing to manage the municipality’s finances properly.
The DA says this is due to the incompetency of ANC officials presiding over the municipality.
“Most of them are absolutely useless. They can’t supply accounts. They can’t follow up. They can’t get the money in and then they spend the money where it should not be spent. For an example, they spent R141 000 in one month to lease a car for the Mayor. They’ve got money for that, but they don’t have money to fix our potholes or service their accounts,” said DA’s Eddie Barlow.
Tshabalala refuted the DA’s claims. He further said the municipal finances are in order.
“Look we were able to identify errors that were contained in the salaries files that made the workers receive their payments late. Of which we were still able to pay them on the 25th and moving forward we are certain that such an error will never occur again. Look we are not in a financial crisis. What I need to mention is that the revenue collection, percentage of our revenue collection is quite low. We need consumers to pay for their bills,” said Tshabalala.
The South African Municipal Workers Union (SAMWU) says it has appealed to the North West provincial government to intervene.
