North West Premier Thandi Modise. File photo: Bongiwe Mchunu North West Premier Thandi Modise. File photo: Bongiwe Mchunu
Johannesburg - Matlosana municipality in North West - which is under financial administration - has been forced to cancel a multimillion-rand soccer event it planned.
The troubled Klerksdorp municipality battled this year to pay Eskom R91 million and Midvaal Water millions of rand.
It therefore came as a surprise that it planned to spend R2.4m on a mayoral soccer challenge at the end of this month.
In the wake of this, North West Premier Thandi Modise is believed to have prevented the “financially strained” municipality from wasting money on a soccer festival.
Her intervention and call for a probe emerged after the apparent plan came out in the media.
However, the municipality said at the weekend that it postponed the tournament because of a lack of sponsors, and denied the council was to fund the tournament.
Only four of 28 local municipalities in the province received clean audits for the past financial year.
Matlosana municipality reportedly planned to spend at least R300 000 on appearance fees for each of the participating PSL teams - Free State Stars, Bloemfontein Celtic, Platinum Stars and SuperSport United.
The municipality hoped to make about R190 000 from the event.
The Matlosana saga comes just a month after another troubled council, Ngaka Modiri Molema district municipality, was hauled before the provincial standing committee on public accounts for spending R2.4m on an event during which acting mayor Maria Monnana delivered her state of the district address.
Matlosana, along with the local municipalities of Maquassi Hills and Ditsobotla, was placed under administration by the provincial government this year to “rescue them from collapse”.
After Matlosana made a payment settlement with Eskom, which saved the town from being plunged into darkness and solving the water crisis, mayor Kagiso Khauoe committed the council to a cost-cutting exercise.
“This council managed to stabilise the Eskom and Midvaal saga, which almost cost us our integrity. Positive strides have been made in ensuring we disengage from activities that are not our core business.
“Gala dinners, purchasing of T-shirts for events, purchasing of soccer tickets, funding music festivals, etcetera are a thing of the past,” Khauoe said in his mid-term budget speech.
Referring to the football event, Modise said:
“Expenditure towards the venture should be measured against service delivery challenges facing communities and whether the municipality, which was unable to meet its financial obligations a few months ago, can now afford to host the challenge without sponsorship.”
Matlosana spokesman Lucky Ntsheye took a swipe at Modise’s office, which had released a statement in which she called for a probe into the funding of the tournament.
“It was very irresponsible of the Premier’s Office to issue a statement saying we’re spending council money on the tournament without consulting us. They can come and investigate and will find out that indeed, there was never an intention to fund the tournament through municipal coffers,” Ntsheye said.
“It is also a blatant lie for anyone to say that Matlosana is facing some financial challenge. Matlosana has recovered financially, we’re now stable and not in arrears with anyone.”
poloko.tau@inl.co.za
The Star
