Africa-Press – South-Africa. The cooperative governance, human settlements and traditional affairs department in the North West says it has launched an investigation after documents belonging to the Ditsobotla Municipality were destroyed and disposed of on the streets of Lichtenburg this week.
According to the department, a group of contractors, whose contracts had been terminated, went on a rampage and trashed official documents on Wednesday.
The documents were collected from the Ditsobotla municipal offices, it said.
A spokesperson, Tumelo Maruping, told News24 they could not confirm “who these people are because some of their contracts ended and some we can’t trace [in the system]. We can only account for permanent staff,” he said.
On Wednesday, the MEC for cooperative governance, Nono Maloyi, condemned what he called “unruly behaviour”.
Maloyi called for stricter security measures to be put in place in all municipal buildings.
“We will not tolerate this kind of behaviour, be it from officials, councillors or members of the public. We will bring in law enforcement agencies to enforce law and order in Ditsobotla, when necessary,” he said.
Meanwhile, the DA leader in the area, Yusuf Laher, said employees reportedly trashed the documents because they were not paid their December salaries.
But Maloyi’s office reiterated that their contracts had come to an end.
“They were purporting they wanted to get paid, but there is no contract that exists,” Maruping said.
News24 previously reported the municipality was dissolved last year September after a year of little to no service delivery because warring factions within the ANC fought over the mayorship.
The municipality was led by both Tsholofelo Moreo and Tebogo Buthelezi.
This, after the council removed Buthelezi in December 2020 by a vote of no confidence, voting Moreo in as the new mayor.
Buthelezi then appealed the decision in court and was reinstated.
But he was removed again by the ANC caucus through another motion of no confidence, and Moreo was reinstated.
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