Maria David
THE commissioning of a special audited investigation team has confirmed that the Karasburg Town Council faces occurrences of a lack of accountability concerning Council funds, as well as the Council generally failing to perform its mandate of delivering services to the residents as required by its establishing law.
This was revealed by Minister of Urban and Rural Development Erastus Uutoni during a meeting with the leadership on the state of affairs at the Town Council of Karasburg.
According to Uutoni, the audit report and findings were forwarded and tabled by a team from the Ministry to the Town Council in September 2022 for implementation and corrective action.
“From my evaluation, the recommended corrective measures were not implemented, resulting in the continuation of illegal activities and a lack of accountability,” he said.
He added that the situation at the Karasburg Town Council can be summed up as a case of a Council that is unable or failing to exercise the powers and perform the duties and functions assigned to a local authority Council in terms of Section 30 of the Local Authorities Act, 1992 (Act No. 23 of 1992) as amended.
Uutoni indicated that the Council also faces persistent lack of proper strategic direction and leadership, as well as accountability and service delivery to the residents, largely due to squabbles, division, or lack of teamwork within the governing Council as well as between the Councillors and Management.
He noted that it is regrettable that, from their assessment, the lack of teamwork and unity of purpose at the political leadership level of the Council has unfortunately filtered down to the operational levels of the Town Council, thereby planting similar seeds of conflicts and disunity.
Moreover, he said the combined effect of this is a lack of or compromised service delivery and accountability to the members of the public who are supposed to be served by this Council.
“The Ministry has also noted with great concern and dismay several instances of non-compliance by Councillors to the provisions of the Local Authorities Act in almost all aspects,” he added.
This includes the statutory requirements for the constitution of functional Council governance structures, the holding of Council meetings, and submission of minutes of Council meetings to the Minister.
Further, Uutoni said the dismissal of the substantive CEO on June 28, 2022, and suspension of some staff members in November last year, who are deemed to be not willing to implement illegal decisions from the Mayor and other Councillors, was done without following due process of the law.
He stressed that it has come to his attention that the signatory authorization powers over the bank accounts of the Town Council have been changed and delegated or assigned to the Acting CEO, who was appointed without following the correct procedures.
“This again is a direct violation of Rule 2(c) of the Code of Conduct for Local Authority Councillors, which clearly states that a Councillor may not interfere in the administrative procedures of a Council,” he said.
He stressed that this action by the Council or its members further contravenes section 81 of the Local Authorities Act, 1992 as amended, which stipulates that the Chief Executive Officer shall be the Accounting Officer of the Local Authority Council and shall, as such, be charged with the responsibility of accounting for all monies received and for all payments made by the Local Authority Council.
In light of the above-mentioned violations as well as the continued disregard of his advice and directives, it is clear that the members of this Town Council do not have the desire to change their attitude and conduct and to follow laid down legal and regulatory procedures on their own.
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