In a decisive move, the Portfolio Committee on Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs has announced plans to devise a comprehensive action plan aimed at addressing the distressing surge in killings targeting councillors and municipal officials.
This initiative comes following an alarming update presented by the South African Local Government Association (Salga) during a committee session.
According to Salga, a distressing 23 incidents across the country occurred in which councillors and municipal officials were killed since the 2021 municipal elections.
KwaZulu-Natal emerged as the most affected province, grappling with a staggering 16 recorded incidents.
The committee was also made aware of the killing of traditional leaders in the Eastern Cape (Dutywa) and KwaZulu-Natal provinces.
“The committee condemns these senseless killings, but understands that some of them are politically motivated to further either inter-political party or intra-political party ends,” the portfolio committee said.
The committee has since requested an update on the killing of councillors and municipal officials, and committed to having this item as a focus area on its agenda so it can receive regular updates.
“This is to ensure the committee conducts vigorous oversight over the executive in all three spheres of government, to curb this trend of the killing of councillors and municipal officials,” it said.
Moreover, the committee emphasised the necessity of broadening the conversation beyond public representatives, actively involving the communities directly affected by these tragic incidents.
A platform will be established to foster dialogue and collaboration, encompassing civil society, faith-based organisations, traditional leaders, and ratepayers' associations.
Aside these grave concerns, the committee applauded the good performance of Salga on its audit outcomes.
“As the representative of local government, it is good to see Salga leading by example on attaining clean audits,” it said.
kailene.pillay@inl.co.za
IOL