MAFUBE – The ongoing governance crisis in Mafube Local Municipality will be escalated to the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA) as residents face mounting service delivery challenges due to the absence of municipal bylaws.
The residents of this municipality, which includes the towns of Frankfort, Tweeling, Villiers, and Cornelia, are left with no alternative but to resort to legal action due to the lack of regulatory frameworks.
Suzette Steyn, DA councillor for Mafube Municipality, said residents face numerous municipal service delivery challenges, including bureaucratic inefficiencies, insufficient resources, and systemic corruption.
These factors severely hinder the municipality’s ability to provide essential services to communities.
“These factors severely hinder the municipality’s ability to provide essential services to communities. Yet, the municipality has merely one gazetted bylaw in place—the Bylaw on Municipal Land Use Planning. Municipal bylaws are designed to maintain order, ensure public safety, and create harmonious living environments,” she said.
Mafube residents have been frustrated for years by various uncontrolled situations due to the lack of bylaws, including roaming cattle, noise disturbances, irregular valuation roll increases, municipal account disputes, zoning complaints, illegal occupation of municipal buildings, theft and arson of municipal properties, and foot-and-mouth disease control.
Without bylaws to guide operations and funding, municipalities struggle to provide essential services such as waste management, road repairs, and infrastructure development.
The absence of bylaws also affects the collection of fees and taxes, creating financial instability and forcing cutbacks on community programmes and services.
This lack of regulation leads to chaos and inconsistency in standards for building and land use, making it difficult to enforce compliance and undermining public safety and quality of life.
Uncertainty around property use and development discourages investment and lowers property values. Without clear communication or a legal framework to enforce rules, confusion arises amongst residents and law enforcement, often leading to inaction and conflict.
The absence of dispute resolution mechanisms leaves municipalities exposed to legal challenges from residents affected by the lack of regulation.
Given that Mafube has been under Section 139 provincial intervention since 2022, the DA will continue to pressure management to adopt and gazette all required bylaws urgently to restore harmonious living conditions for Mafube communities.
The escalation to CoGTA represents the latest attempt to address the municipality’s systemic failures and provide residents with the basic regulatory framework necessary for effective local governance.
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