The Umkhonto we Sizwe Military Veterans Association in the Vhembe region is calling upon the ANC to either fire the political management team (PMT) of the district, or to deploy them elsewhere.

This follows accusations that the members of the PMT are not delivering adequate services to the communities and its employees.

The PMT comprises the executive mayor, Cllr Tshitereke Matibe, Speaker Mavuyisa Fungheni and the Chief Whip, Cllr Tshifhiwa Dali. The trio are regarded as the driving force of the municipality, but the association is accusing them of ignoring communities and employees in terms of service delivery.

The chairperson of the association in the region, Mr Speedo Dau, said on Monday that the situation the Vhembe district was a worrying factor after it was discovered that the PMT-members were among the councillors who did not report for duty in Thohoyandou for the past weeks.

They were barred from entering their place of work, following the non-payment of January salaries to a large number of essential services and the payment of third parties, which included medical schemes, which was reported to be due to some of the workers.

“We asked the meeting with the ANC regional executive council (REC) on Monday, but they didn’t allow us the opportunity to discuss it with them. The PMT’s absence from duty will cause service delivery to the communities to be negatively affected,” said Dau.

Vhembe district municipality’s workers downed tools on Monday a fortnight ago and barred the PMT and councillors from entering their place of work. A group of municipal workers, who are also members of the SA Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu), convened outside the municipal chambers in Thohoyandou and resolved that the mayor, acting municipal manager and some councillors would not set foot in the municipal headquarters until their outstanding salaries whad been paid.

High-level insiders indicated that the municipality was not in a position to pay all its workers, with one commenting that “Vhembe is basically broke.  It is so broke that it even exhausted its overdraft facility.” The troubled municipality is still subject to an investigation into maladministration and corruption ordered by Pres Jacob Zuma last year. 

“We are still standing on our motion, that the executive mayor, Speaker and Chief Whip should go until such time that we get a new administration. We don’t have confidence in the present group. We want the ANC in the region to speed up the process of removing them urgently, because their stay will delay service delivery,” said Mr Timmy Tshililo of Samwu in the Vhembe region.

During the district’s special meeting held in Thohoyandou on Saturday, Matibe denied during a media during that the Vhembe district was in financial chaos. “Vhembe district has a budget of more than R1billion, of which 86% is grant funded by the national government and 14% from own funding. After a number of meetings with both the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs and the National Treasury, an amount of R167 million from the Municipal Infrastructure Grant was transferred to the municipality on 29 January and a further R96 million is anticipated to be transferred to the account of the district this week,” said Matibe.