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The Democratic Alliance (DA) will submit a motion in the next council sitting to request a debate on the failure to hire senior managers as well as the high vacancy rates in Musina Municipality.

The municipality has had vacancies for the General Manager for Technical services since 2014, the General Manager for Economic Development and Planning since 2017 and the General Manager for Community Services since 2020.

The inability to appoint permanent senior managers has led to great instability in the running of the municipality. At the moment, acting managers need to be appointed every 90 days.

The largest challenge the municipality faces with appointing senior managers is the inability to offer competitive salaries that will attract highly skilled personnel. It also raises concerns that the acting managers are not appointed permanently because they lack the requisite qualifications, skills and competencies.

The poor financial position of the municipality has left it unable to fill vacancies and has caused abnormally high vacancy rates across all departments. The Office of the Municipal manager has 14 vacancies out of 38 posts, Budget and Reporting has 25 vacancies out of 61 posts, Economic Development and Planning has 27 vacancies out of 33 posts, Corporate Services has 38 vacancies out of 74 posts, Community Services has 110 vacancies out of 250 posts and Technical Services has 138 vacancies out of 194 posts.

The failure to appoint permanent senior managers as well as fill vacancies in key departments of the municipality has resulted in the loss of technical skills and has seen service delivery in addition to the finances of the municipality being negatively impacted.

Musina Local Municipality now faces major challenges with driving local economic development, maintaining wastewater treatment plants, providing water to parts of the municipality, refuse collection, management of projects, revenue management and collection as well as a failure to maintain roads and complete road projects.

It is clear that the council needs to urgently take steps to address these vacancies in the municipality and arrest the decline of services to the people of Musina.

The DA is committed to ensuring stability and capable leadership in senior management that will bring good service delivery to the people of Musina.

Issued by Mashudu Mariba - DA Caucus Leader in Musina Local Municipality