DA to lodge formal objection to Midvaal Merger

The DA in Gauteng intends to lodge a formal objection to the Municipal Demarcation Board's decision to push ahead with the merger of Midvaal and Emfuleni municipalities to create a new Vaal Metro (see here - PDF).

We believe that this decision is politically motivated and not based on any sound information supporting such a merger. An independent report conducted on behalf of the Gauteng Local Government and Housing Department indicated that the merger is not preferable and holds no advantages. Yet the department used this report as its motivation to approach the MDB for the re-demarcation.

We believe that the MDB based its decision on the request by the department and caved in to political pressure to go ahead with the demarcation proposal to get rid of Midvaal, the only DA controlled municipality in Gauteng.

The DA will utilise its legal right to object to the decision of the Board and call on all other organisations and individuals to lodge their objections to the proposed merger. According to the Municipal Demarcation Act a period of 30 days is available to lodge objections and the Board must consider each and every objection.

The DA will furthermore apply to the Board to provide the reasons it based its decision on. It is important to keep the Board accountable for its decisions and to ensure that it adheres to the act that governs it.

Local government in Gauteng is in trouble financially and in terms of managerial capacity. Mergers have not proven to improve the delivery of municipal services and metros in Gauteng have turned out to become bloated organisations with financial constraints that affect serviced delivery negatively instead of improving it.

The DA believes that there are better alternatives to the suggested proposal by the Board and will use all legal avenues to promote these alternatives.

Where municipalities, like Midvaal, are managed well and delivering on its Constitutional mandate, they should be left alone to continue operating in that way. The merger with Emfuleni, a badly run municipality, will only cause a decline in the quality of municipal services that residents from Midvaal are currently being given.

Statement issued by Fred Nel MPL, DA Gauteng Local Government spokesperson, August 5 2013

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