Opposition parties in the Ditsobotla Local Municipality, located in Lichtenburg, North West, claim that the ANC’s proposal to form a government of local unity with other parties is primarily motivated by its own interests. Currently, the municipality operates under a coalition that includes the ANC and four smaller parties.
Recently, nine ANC councilors threatened to leave the party to join the MK Party, although they later retracted their decision. This situation led the ANC to propose a government of local unity. Tumelo Maruping, the spokesperson for the North West ANC, stated that internal discussions are currently ongoing.
“We are busy with some discussions internally, including with other political parties, to stabilize Ditsobotla Local Municipality and we want to promise the people of Ditsobotla that very soon it will be stabilized and cancer that is in Ditsobotla will be something of the past once we finalize the arrangement of government of local unity.”
DA caucus leader in the Municipal Council, Yusuf Laher, confirmed the talks but says the ANC must first get its own house in order.
“There are possible talks of a coalition between the ANC and DA; however, we cannot comment until the ANC has resolved their issues. We heard that the current speaker was asked to resign. There is a PR councilor who was asked to resign, we have not seen those resignations. Until we do not see those resignations, we cannot think of having those talks of the coalition. However, as the DA we are open to those talks.”
Meanwhile, EFF spokesperson in the province, Fanon Moema, says the ANC is being selfish.
“There is a political motive from the ruling party to make sure that Ditsobotla does not function for their selfish benefits. From time to time, they ensure that that municipality is under the administration of CoGTA as well as the provincial Treasury. ”
Local government and administration expert, Arthur Shopola, says he has little faith that this will make much difference to service delivery.
“They are just using this phenomenon of government of local unity maybe as their political strategy to deal with certain political matters but for me, this is a coalition, they are entering into coalition talks, and at the end of the day, you will have the ANC partnering with a certain party or two more parties just to run the council. But in essence, Ditsobotla is facing a governance crisis.”
And while negotiations continue, residents lament poor service delivery.
