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The Democratic Alliance (DA) in uThukela District Municipality is deeply alarmed by the IFP-led executive’s latest attempt to tax its way out of the financial and service-delivery crisis it has created.

During Friday’s Council Meeting, the IFP pushed through a draft 2026/2027 budget containing far above-inflation 20% increases on water and other services – even while the municipality cannot keep clean water running in communities.

This is not leadership. It is desperation. The IFP cannot fix the mess of poor governance and corruption by squeezing already struggling households. When the IFP took control of uThukela in 2021, 60% of residents were settling their municipal bills. Today, after years of collapsed water infrastructure and endless excuses, that figure has plummeted to just 40%. People are simply refusing to pay for services they do not receive. Slapping higher tariffs on them will not bring the money back – it will drive even more residents away and deepen the crisis.

The IFP’s failures are staring us in the face. The very real possibility that bank accounts will be frozen again after the Municipal Manager ignored a court order despite R12 million sitting in the accounts. Millions in unauthorised loans were routed through the uThukela Economic Development Agency without proper Council approval. The Auditor-General is being asked to issue a certificate of debt against the Municipal Manager for the R31 million in extra interest caused by this self-inflicted disaster. Yet instead of fixing the rot within the executive, the IFP is trying to make residents pay for it.

Speaker, Cllr T. Y Nqubuka, added insult to injury on Friday. She blocked the DA’s properly lodged motion to suspend the Municipal Manager, only adding it to the agenda at the last minute – without attaching the actual document so councillors could read it. She refused to record our formal objections to the illegal loan ratification and the unaffordable budget increases. These are not small oversights; they are attempts to silence accountability while the IFP protects its own.

The DA has given the Speaker 72 hours to correct these mistakes, circulate the full motions properly, and reconvene an open Council Meeting so every councillor can apply their mind and vote with full information. If she fails to act, we will take further steps to protect residents and restore proper governance.

uThukela’s people deserve better than broken taps and higher bills. The DA will not stop fighting for real accountability and functional local government.

Issued by Councillor Thys Janse van Rensburg - DA uThukela Chairperson