Lekwa Local Municipality is a South African local municipality situated in the southwest of the

Gert Sibande District Municipality Gert Sibande (until 2004 known as the Eastvaal District Municipality) is one of the 3 districts of Mpumalanga province of South Africa. The seat of Gert Sibande is Ermelo. The majority of its 900 007 people speak IsiZulu (2001 Census). The dist ...

of Mpumalanga.

Standerton Standerton is a large commercial and agricultural town lying on the banks of the Vaal River in Mpumalanga, South Africa, which specialises in cattle, dairy, maize and poultry farming. The town was established in 1876 and named after Boer leader Co ...

, an urban node, is the seat of the Lekwa Local Municipality. The municipality was inaugurated on the 5th of December 2000 after the amalgamation the Standerton, Sakhile and Morgenzon councils. Agriculture, forestry and fishing constitute about 30% of its economy. It is situated on open grassland plains of the

Highveld The Highveld (Afrikaans: ''Hoëveld'', where ''veld'' means "field") is the portion of the South African inland plateau which has an altitude above roughly 1500 m, but below 2100 m, thus excluding the Lesotho mountain regions to the south-east of ...

region, which is traversed by the west-flowing

Vaal River The Vaal River ( ; Khoemana: ) is the largest tributary of the Orange River in South Africa. The river has its source near Breyten in Mpumalanga province, east of Johannesburg and about north of Ermelo and only about from the Indian Ocean. ...

, for which it is named. Lekwa is the

Sotho Sotho may refer to: *Sotho people (or ''Basotho''), an African ethnic group principally resident in South Africa, Lesotho and southern Botswana * Sotho language (''Sesotho'' or ''Southern Sotho''), a Bantu language spoken in southern Africa, an off ...

name for the Vaal River. Lekwa's first two decades were marked by increasing maladministration, which culminated in a collapse in governance and service delivery by 2020. This had negative consequences for its residents and businesses, the environment, and utilities which were not paid for their services.

Main places

The 2001 census divided the municipality into the following main places:

Politics

The municipal council consists of thirty members elected by mixed-member proportional representation. Fifteen councillors are elected by

first-past-the-post voting In a first-past-the-post electoral system (FPTP or FPP), formally called single-member plurality voting (SMP) when used in single-member districts or informally choose-one voting in contrast to ranked voting, or score voting, voters cast thei ...

in fifteen wards, while the remaining fifteen are chosen from party lists so that the total number of party representatives is proportional to the number of votes received. In the election of 1 November 2021 the

African National Congress The African National Congress (ANC) is a social-democratic political party in South Africa. A liberation movement known for its opposition to apartheid, it has governed the country since 1994, when the first post-apartheid election install ...

(ANC) lost its majority, winning thirteen seats on the council. The following table shows the results of the election. Following the election, in which the

lost its majority for the first time, resulting in one of three hung councils in Mpumalanga, candidates from the Lekwa Community Forum were elected to the mayorship and speaker positions, while the Economic Freedom Fighters won the chief whip position.

Corruption and mismanagement

In 2008 Lekwa's municipal manager, Calvin Ngobeni, was accused of maladministration and was suspended with all members of his short-listing panel. They were charged with misconduct for appointing candidates who did not meet minimum criteria. Two top-ranking officials who were not suitably qualified were also suspended. In 2017 it became clear that the municipality was one of several drowning in debt due to corruption and lack of skills. Allegations of maladministration and corruption in 2018 cited poor financial discipline, the large deficit, over-indebtedness with

SARS Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is a viral respiratory disease of zoonotic origin caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV or SARS-CoV-1), the first identified strain of the SARS coronavirus species, ''seve ...

and

Eskom Eskom Hld SOC Ltd or Eskom is a South African electricity public utility. It was established in 1923 as the Electricity Supply Commission (ESCOM) and was also known by its Afrikaans name Elektrisiteitsvoorsieningskommissie (EVKOM). Eskom repre ...

, besides unauthorised, irregular, fruitless and/or wasteful expenditure which were written off as irrecoverable. A VAT review was recommended, and various instances of non-compliance with the Municipal Finance Management Act (MFMA) were noted. As a result a forensic investigation was launched by the Department of Cooperative Governance (DCoG). In anticipation of the outcome of the Section 106 probe, opposition parties hinted at the precautionary suspension of municipal manager Ms Gugulethu Mhlongo-Ntshangase. Mhlongo-Ntshangase left eMadlangeni Local Municipality (

Utrecht Utrecht ( , , ) is the fourth-largest city and a municipality of the Netherlands, capital and most populous city of the province of Utrecht. It is located in the eastern corner of the Randstad conurbation, in the very centre of mainland Net ...

) in 2017 amid corruption allegations. During 2019 the municipality's main water treatment plant in

was in disrepair and was causing pollution of the upper

. The municipality was unable to explain why large amounts of money spent on the problem had not yet brought a solution. The stench of sewage was also affecting residents of Meyerville in Standerton, besides Sakhile township and Rooikoppen ext 8. R83 million was spent on the Rooikoppen sewage problem without any work being done. To assist users downstream, clean water had to be pumped into the Vaal River to dilute its high salt levels, thereby wasting a large quantity of this scarce resource. Anthony Turton of the Centre for Environmental Management at the

University of the Free State The University of the Free State is a multi-campus public university in Bloemfontein, the capital of the Free State and the judicial capital of South Africa. It was first established as an institution of higher learning in 1904 as a tertiary se ...

, noted that a dysfunctional municipality is usually recognized by the fact that it cannot maintain its sewerage works. At the same time the town's basic infrastructure appeared visibly aged, with traffic lights being out of order, and potholes present on most streets. It was also unable to provide other basic services in a sustainable manner. It was taken to court by businesses around Standerton for failing to provide clean and sufficient water and electricity. These service interruptions were due to the municipality's soaring debt to

(R1.1 billion by 2020), and its non-payment for services provided by the

Department of Water and Sanitation The Department of Water and Sanitation is one of the departments of the South African government. It is responsible for the state of water and sanitation in South Africa. In May 2009, following the election of Jacob Zuma, the Department of Wa ...

. Notwithstanding it spent large amounts on private security (guards getting R70,000 to R90,000 a month), events (including meat and catering), cars, travelling, accommodation and restaurants during 2018 and 2019. In 2019 six licensing officials in Standerton were arrested for allegedly falsifying vehicle ownership registration on the national traffic information system (NaTIS) to enable truck owners to avoid payment of vehicle licensing fees, including penalties and arrears. Over a dozen homes burned down and three children died in a fire in January 2020 while the town had no access to a

fire engine A fire engine (also known in some places as a fire truck or fire lorry) is a road vehicle (usually a truck) that functions as a firefighting apparatus. The primary purposes of a fire engine include transporting firefighters and water to an ...

. A month after the children's deaths Lekwa ordered two fire engines for R250,000 each, but the contractor which didn't specialize in fire equipment failed to deliver the first, while the second broke down on its way to Standerton. The municipality took receipt of one new fire engine late October 2020. Refuse started piling up on the streets since June 2020, as trucks and equipment were allegedly in disrepair. Potholes in roads caused accidents and deaths, and traffic lights had not been repaired for years. Some areas had been without water for months or years, while others received dirty water. Residents and businesses had to forgo an electricity supply for six hours a day, despite 90% of residents using prepaid meters. Businesses had to spend thousands of rands daily to run electricity generators. Its service billing system had become unreliable in terms of pricing and invoicing, and in August 2020 the municipal workers started a strike which exacerbated matters.

References

External links

Official Website
{{coord, 26, 33, S, 29, 10, E, type:adm1st_source:dewiki, display=title Local municipalities of the Gert Sibande District Municipality