The irregular appointment of Sol Plaatje ward committee members smacks of ANC cadre deployment, prompting the Democratic Alliance (DA) to request COGHSTA to urgently investigate.

This comes after DA councillors were presented, by the Speakers Office, with lists of ward committee members that have already signed their contracts despite not been approved in Council. In fact, the approval was deferred in a previous council sitting because the list was not attached for scrutiny.

The DA has noted that there are a number of ward committee members who do not reside in the wards where they are now serving. They are also not all registered with the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC). This is in direct contravention of the criteria for ward committee members, who are meant to be vetted by the Speaker’s Office. We also do not buy the Speaker’s excuse that they were supposedly vetted by COGHSTA.

Given the ANC’s very much exposed policy on cadre deployment, it is obvious that the ward committees are being abused by the ruling party to retain votes and reward party loyalty. Even more so, given that the DA has learned that Sol Plaatje wants to back-pay the 330 ward committee members for two months, despite no work having been done for this period and them not even having been contracted for that period.

The entire process is flawed and will not be tolerated by the DA.

I have written to COGHSTA MEC, Bentley Vass, asking him to investigate and intervene.

Ward committee members have a very important role to play in terms of reporting service delivery issues in wards, so that they can be attended to. Superficial ward committees will only add to the already costly employee structure of Sol Plaatje and do nothing towards addressing broken streetlights, growing potholes and burgeoning water and sewerage leaks.

 

Issued by Elize Niemann, Cllr - Sol Plaatje Municipality