by Cllr Tjaart van der Walt – DA Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality
| Date: 17 July 2022 |
| Soundbites in English and Afrikaans by Cllr Tjaart van der Walt. On 4 July 2022, the DA handed in a motion to strengthen and improve the oversight function of council and give council direct control over the terms of reference for Oversight Committees. It is now up to the speaker and city manager to ensure it is tabled at the next ordinary council meeting. Over the past 6 years, the Section 80 committees – led by mayoral committee members – rarely met. These committees are directly dependent on the Mayor delegating a council item or responsibility to the Mayoral committee member. The Mayor is the only person who can appoint and hold a mayoral committee member accountable and assign responsibilities and/or delegate powers to them.By transitioning the section 80 committees into section 79 committees, council will have direct control over the appointment and accountability of chairpersons for these committees as well as the terms of reference of the committees. In addition, these committees will then be able to co-opt non-councillors onto the committee and will have the power to appoint investigators or prosecutors. This will strengthen council’s oversight of the executive, heads of department and administration officials. It will aid the council to hold the executive accountable for their performance and functionality.The motion is evidence-based and already practiced in most other metro’s. We look forward to the motion being tabled at the next ensuing council meeting. |
| Media Enquiries |
| Cllr Tjaart van der WaltDA Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality074 100 6808 Cllr Dave McKayDA Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality082 414 7491 |
Councillor Tjaart van der Walt 