OUTA welcomes KZN intervention in Msunduzi municipality

The Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (OUTA) welcomes the intervention by the KwaZulu-Natal government into the Msunduzi Local Municipality, following the municipality’s failure to manage its resources to efficiently serve its residents.

According to Tim Tyrrell, OUTA’s Provincial Manager for KZN, the Government must prove itself to the people by making this intervention a success.

OUTA believes that Government should have intervened some time ago, which might have prevented the municipality from reaching its current state.

The Province has intervened in terms of section 139(1)(b) of the Constitution and promised to prepare and implement a comprehensive recovery plan.

OUTA believes the intervention should go further.

“OUTA calls on the Province to enforce a Section 139(1)(c), dissolving the municipal council and appointing an administrator,” says Tyrrell.

“The community should be granted the opportunity to say who should be appointed to ensure that their hard-earned rates and taxes work for the people until a newly elected municipal council has been declared.”

Although MEC Nomusa Dube-Ncube acknowledges that Msunduzi municipality is not prioritising its residents due to a dysfunctional council, unauthorised and irregular expenditure, under-spending and a lack of good governance, the MEC has neglected to insist on a fuller intervention.

OUTA Local in KwaZulu-Natal will watch this matter closely. 

Julius Kleynhans, OUTA Local’s Operations Executive, says OUTA hopes to see those implicated in wrongdoing held to account.

“It is critical that all parties involved in remedying the Msunduzi municipality’s challenges work together for the benefit of the residents who are affected. OUTA will be establishing structures in the province to assist municipalities and the Province to challenge municipal decay, corruption and maladministration on behalf of the people.”