26/02/2025
UPDATE 11am
The crowd outside the city hall fills Church Square.
Protesters gather for Makhanda march
SMILING SOUTH REPORTER
From early this morning, students gathered at the entrance to Rhodes University campus and residents gathered at Soccer City in FIngo Village. They will join hundreds of other Makhanda residents in a peaceful march to the city hall to protest against “maladministration, fraud and corruption and service delivery collapse”. The march is happening against the backdrop of a fifth consecutive disclaimer audit opinion for Makana Municipality from the Auditor General.
Under the banner of Concerned Makhanda Residents, the group will hand over a petition to the Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Velenkosini Hlabisa.
In the petition, the group demands the Mayor and the Speaker be removed from office, “as it is these two who preside over and encourage the passing of unlawful resolutions and have ensured that the oversight structures are deliberately and intentionally weakened”.
The University yesterday agreed to suspend the academic programme for the morning and the SRC and Oppidan Union have thrown their weight behind a broad-based service delivery protest.
“We, the collective mass based organizations, faith based institutions, private businesses, various political formations, unions and general members of the public of the Makana Municipality, demand the immediate removal of the Mayor and the Speaker from our municipality,” a statement from the organising group, Concerned Makhanda Residents, says. “For too long Makana municipality has been experiencing political instability, maladministration, fraud and corruption and service delivery collapse… This is a municipality that cannot fulfil its constitutional and legislative obligations… Makana is a municipality that has been politically and administratively mismanaged by the Executive Mayor, Speaker and a cohort of conflicted officials.
“Straining under the effects of more than a decade of maladministration we have put aside our political differences in a desperate plea for intervention by the national government. Collapsing infrastructure, financial vulnerability and service delivery failures at the scale of disaster have made it increasingly difficult for residents, businesses, the town’s top education institutions and state services to function,” the group said in their statement.
Makana Municipality was put under administration in 2014 and several times subsequently and in 2020 the high court ordered the province to dissolve the council and put the municipality under full administration.
What should have been an opportunity to reboot the town and put it on a path to recovery was first stalled by the province, who (unsuccessfully) appealed the judgment and then made moot by the election of a new council in November 2021.
The subsequent fraudulent insertion of five illegitimate councillors weakened oversight during most of the council’s five-year term. The flouting of accountability was confirmed by the Auditor General’s disclaimer finding for the 2023/24 financial year. This is Makana Municipality’s fifth successive audit disclaimer.
Several hastily organised engagements by the municipality’s leadership inlcuded a media briefing and “finger lunch” on Monday. There, members of the media were informed about projects under way in Makhanda.
Reverend Nkosinathi Ngesi, who is a spokesperson for the group, said that the convening of an SMME briefing in Joza, coinciding with the start of the march in Fingo Village; a hastily called meeting for community work project (CWP) workers; a hastily called meeting for Ward 12 residents (Ward 12 includes the Rhodes University campus, which is likely to boost the number of marchers); and a call for residents of informal settlement eNkanini to stay at home to receive rubbish bins from the Mayor were attempts by the municipality to divert those groups of stakeholders from participating in or supporting the march.
“Bayangcangcazela (they are nervous),” he said, commenting on a post circulated on social media this morning, falsely claiming the march had been postponed.
PHOTOS: GREG WILMOT
