DA welcomes court ruling denying Midvaal Merger
22 September 2015
The DA welcomes today's ruling by the North Gauteng High Court to set aside the decision of the Municipal Demarcation Board to amalgamate the Midvaal Local Municipality with the Emfuleni Local Municipality into a single Category A – Metropolitan Municipality.
This is a victory for democracy, a victory for due process and a victory for the electorate.
This ruling means that any notices published in pursuance of the decision after the 30th of July 2013 have also been set aside.
The DA took the Municipal Demarcation Board’s decision to merge Midvaal with the ANC-governed Emfuleni to court because we recognised that this move would lead to the deterioration of service delivery in Gauteng’s best run municipality.
Under DA governance Midvaal municipality is the best in Gauteng at delivering services, creating jobs and sound financial management.
Ratings Afrika’s Municipal Financial Stability Index (MFSI) for 2014, which covered a sample of the 100 largest local municipalities in the country, found that Midvaal was the top performing municipality in the province when it comes to financial sustainability.
Unemployment in Midvaal is also lower than anywhere else in the province. The municipality has also received ten clean audits in a row, under the DA.
The ANC wanted to merge Midvaal with a municipality that has never received a clean or unqualified audit and whose unemployment rate stands at over 45%. This was clearly not in the interest of the electorate.
Midvaal also leads when it comes to its indigent policies, which allow for a larger number of poor households to qualify for free and subsidised services.
We believe that this decision by the Municipal Demarcation Board was politically motivated and not based on the service delivery needs of residents. This is proved by the fact that the board received over 10 000 objection letters from members of the public, which were simply ignored. Today these 10 000 objectors, and the DA’s long standing opposition to this merger, has been vindicated by court.
We are pleased that the North Gauteng High Court put a stop to the ANC’s political gerrymandering and attempts to take away the DA’s control of Midvaal ahead of next year’s local elections. The way to win control of local governments is at the ballot box, not through nefarious and illegitimate processes.
The DA would like to thank the residents of Midvaal who supported us in our fight to stop this merger.
Midvaal is a blue-print for the type of government we want to provide to all the people of Gauteng and we are committed to bringing this change to other municipalities in the 2016 local government elections.
Statement issued by Refiloe Ntsekhe MPL, DA National Spokesperson, 22 September 2015
