Parliament’s Select Committee on Cooperative Governance and Public Administration has called for stronger financial management, political accountability and improved service delivery following oversight visits to the troubled Impendle and Ngwathe local municipalities.

The committee raised concern over Impendle Local Municipality’s financial collapse, including a wage bill that exceeded the municipality’s equitable-share allocation, while warning that litigation and weak cooperation had hindered efforts to address Ngwathe Local Municipality’s governance and service-delivery failures.

Committee chairperson Mxolisi Kaunda said the experience in Ngwathe showed that disputes between municipalities, provincial governments and other stakeholders should be resolved through cooperation before court action was considered.

“While litigation remains a legitimate mechanism for resolving disputes, it should be regarded as a measure of last resort,” Kaunda said.

The committee said litigation had diverted limited municipal resources from service delivery into lengthy and expensive legal proceedings that did not directly benefit residents.

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