The National Council of Provinces has called for the national government to continue with its intervention in North West.
This after all provinces in the NCOP except for the Western Cape on Wednesday backed the report of the ad hoc committee into the North West intervention.
Co-operative Governance Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma said the situation in North West had been festering for a while before national government intervened in 2018.
She warned that an intervention was not a sprint, but a marathon. Dlamini Zuma said their work was not yet over and more needed to be done in the province.
The national government had last year told the NCOP the intervention would come to an end in March this year.
But the ad hoc committee, chaired by China Dodovu of the ANC, visited the province in March and has recommended that the intervention continue.
Dlamini Zuma told the NCOP that law enforcement agencies had been investigating a number of corruption cases linked to the North West since the intervention began.
She said the National Prosecuting Authority was pursuing 51 criminal cases.
Some of the officials found to be implicated in corruption had either been dismissed or faced disciplinary action.
Dlamini Zuma said they had learnt a lot of lessons in the North West since the intervention started three years ago.
“Our intervention has taught us a lot. The central lesson is that all political parties must play their part, especially at local government level because where there is instability in the council, it leads to problems in governance, the oversight becomes poor; where there are divisions there is no proper oversight, municipal public accounts committees don’t work, the financial management gets interfered with and also if there is inappropriate interface between council and the administration, then you find that there are problems.
’’If there is interference, you find that posts are not filled on time or not filled appropriately,” said Dlamini Zuma.
“It’s very important that political parties play their part because all these things lead up to poor service delivery and our people in the process suffer.”
Political Bureau