For years, struggling municipalities in the North West have been the perfect scapegoats. Every service delivery protest, every Eskom debt crisis, every unfunded budget has been dumped at the feet of local councils. But the truth, finally dragged into the open during Parliament’s oversight visit this week, is that the real culprits often sit far higher up the food chain — in the Premier’s office and the provincial executive.
The intervention in Ramotshere Moiloa Local Municipality has been framed as an urgent response, a lifeline for a collapsing institution riddled with debt, infighting, and even gunshots in council chambers. But let’s be honest: this intervention is long overdue. The Premier, Mr Lazerus Mokgosi, and his MECs did not suddenly discover constitutional powers tucked away in some hidden drawer. They always had the authority to act. They simply chose not to use it until Parliament applied pressure and embarrassed them into moving.
Ramotshere is not an isolated case. It is one of 18 municipalities in the province that have been hauled before the oversight delegation. The pattern is the same everywhere: unfunded budgets, unpaid bills to Eskom, water shortages, and political thuggery masquerading as governance. If the provincial government had been proactive instead of reactive, many of these fires could have been prevented. Instead, residents are left living in a constant state of crisis, waiting for the next protest or collapse to attract attention.
The Premier’s so-called action plan, with its committees, briefings, and stakeholder meetings, may sound impressive on paper, but it reeks of political theatre. South Africans have seen this movie before — commissions, task teams, ad hoc committees that investigate, report, and recommend but rarely deliver meaningful change. If Premier Mokgosi and his executive were serious, they would have intervened years ago. Now, they are scrambling to look decisive only because Parliament has shamed them into it.
What makes the Ramotshere situation particularly alarming is the culture of violence creeping into municipal politics. Reports of intimidation and even a shooting at the municipal offices should have been the ultimate red flag. Instead, the provincial executive turned a blind eye until oversight committees forced their hand. That is not leadership. It is negligence bordering on complicity.
Dr Zweli Mkhize, leading the oversight delegation, said it plainly: the Premier and MECs have the authority, and they must use it. But the uncomfortable truth is that they only seem to wield this authority when their backs are against the wall. Ordinary residents of Ramotshere and across the North West deserve better than leaders who wait for a national spectacle before remembering their constitutional obligations.
If this intervention is to mean anything, it must be more than another PR stunt. The provincial executive must stop hiding behind municipalities and start taking full responsibility for governance failures. Anything less is just another betrayal of the people they claim to serve.
