EKURHULENI - Calls are growing for urgent intervention in the Ekurhuleni municipality, with allegations of corruption and poor governance driving demands for leadership change.
Residents there say the rot in the municipality and council should see officials fired.
They acknowledge that poor financial management is a wider issue affecting South African municipalities.
Residents are unhappy in several parts of the city.
Matthews Setshego from Gosforth Park said there is rot within the municipality.
“I totally agree with the allegations that come out of there. What is happening here? There is a rot in the municipality and the council."
“I think there are the wrong people in positions. There needs to be a restructuring of leadership. That is what we need and what we want to see. Failing which, they must employ us to clean this area and pay us because we don’t know who they are paying,” Mapontso Mopeli, another Gosforth resident, said.
Michael Hume said the issue is finances.
“We can’t have a city that is run ineffectively. The biggest problem in this country is basic mismanagement of finances, and it’s across the board. Not only in Ekurhuleni. We see it in the City of Johannesburg, which has been declared bankrupt at the moment. Our municipalities in some way intertwine. Problems become even harder to deal with," he said.