President and National Executive now risk personal cost orders for municipal collapse
Sakeliga has informed President Cyril Ramaphosa and several of his Ministers that it will seek personal cost orders against them – unless they urgently take direct responsibility for recovery of the collapsed Ditsobotla Local Municipality.
The President and his National Executive are in gross violation of their constitutional duties to resolve Ditsobotla’s implosion of water services, electricity provision, and basic administration. Their indefensible failure to intervene as the National Executive under section 139(7) of the Constitution, highlighted below, deserves the personal and punitive sanction of the court:
- This week, the MEC for Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs in North-West resorted to a public and televised plea that the National Executive “must invoke section 139(7),” because the province has exhausted all its options. That the Provincial Executive has had to resort to public statements and media briefings to plead for national intervention speaks to an inexcusable systemic failure of constitutional intergovernmental cooperation and communication. The public plea was broadcast on 6 August 2025, here.
- Neither the President nor his ministers cited as respondents in Sakeliga’s ongoing litigation have raised any substantive opposition to our motion that they should be ordered to implement section 139(7). Thus, while they in fact concede and agree with Sakeliga on the need for their intervention, they fail to act accordingly. See court papers under “Resources” below.
- President Ramaphosa has visited and is personally familiar with the dire situation. During his visit before the last elections, he publicly stated that Ditsobotla is a “horror story”, “captured by criminal elements,” and that “money was just being siphoned out”. Link here.
We have given the President, the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs, and the Minister of Water and Sanitation until 15 August 2025 to provide written confirmation of the steps they are taking or intend to take.
Cost orders also to be sought against the North-West Provincial Executive
Sakeliga has informed the Premier of North West and his Provincial Executive that it will also be seeking personal cost orders against them if they do not immediately withdraw their opposition to our litigation.
The North West Province’s continued opposition to Sakeliga’s litigation is unconscionable, especially in light of its public admission of failure and plea that the President and his National Executive should invoke section 139(7) of the Constitution.
In the words of North West MEC for Co-operative Governance, Human Settlements and Traditional Affairs, Mr Gaoage Molapisi, the national government should “bring the team, bring the resources, bring everybody” to restore order in Ditsobotla. “Voters would continue to give you the same outcome, is not an option. Intervention the last resort,” he said in his 6 August statement.
Sakeliga has given the Premier and his Provincial Executive until 14 August 2025 to comply by withdrawing their opposition, whereafter it will proceed to supplement its existing litigation accordingly.
In our letter, we reminded the Premier and his Provincial Executive that just in the last year the High Court stringently criticised their improper opposition to our litigation, awarding a punitive cost order against them in favour of Sakeliga. While this last cost order was not against them personally, Sakeliga will now ask the court to make this so if the Premier and his Provincial Executive do not now withdraw their opposition to our litigation.
“I cannot find any excuse in the conduct of the respondents”, the earlier order by the Mahikeng High Court read. “The respondents were delaying the inevitable: trying to circumvent their constitutional duty to provide sufficient water to members of the public. The opposition of the application was, in my view, totally unnecessary.” Link here.
The National and Provincial Executives are all once again following the same recipe that has already earned the court’s reproach. By persisting in their opposition to our application seeking section 139(7) intervention while publicly acknowledging the need for it, they are repeating the very line of conduct for which the Mahikeng High Court previously issued a stinging rebuke.
About Sakeliga’s litigation for recovery in Ditsobotla
The current phase of the litigation by Sakeliga and our partners in Ditsobotla stems from a court order in October 2023. At the time, the court ordered provincial intervention at Ditsobotla, because of ongoing and accelerated state failure in Lichtenburg, Coligny, Boikhutso, Blydeville and surrounding areas.
However, by their own admission, all attempts by the Provincial Executive government to rectify the situation have now failed and they have no prospects of future success.
Our litigation therefore requests the court to order that the President of the Republic of South Africa and his cabinet should fix the collapsed Ditsobotla Local Municipality themselves, in terms of section 139(7) of the Constitution. This is the highest form of government intervention and final remedy that the Constitution explicitly provides for in cases of complete state failure, as in Ditsobotla.
In our application, Sakeliga requests the court to declare that the President (as head of the National Executive), the cabinet as a whole, and certain cabinet members individually are acting unconstitutionally and unlawfully by not intervening with the Ditsobotla Local Municipality. We accordingly request that the court orders the President and his cabinet:
- To take over all the responsibilities of intervention from the provincial government
- Themselves enforce and implement the approved municipal recovery plan
Should the President and cabinet continue to neglect or fail in their duties, it would herald an unprecedented constitutional crisis. Without stabilisation of Ditsobotla and the multitude of other municipalities approaching similar collapse, the destabilisation of all the urban environments in South Africa – and therefore the country itself – is a substantial risk. This would necessitate that Sakeliga approaches the court for alternative and novel relief under Article 172 of the Constitution, to restore order to the affected towns.
The President and cabinet still have a chance to fulfill their duties, but businesspeople and the residents of Ditsobotla cannot rely naively on an unwilling government. Although this will require a long-term process, it is inevitable that the vacuums of state failure will have to be filled by alternative solutions that business people and communities develop step by step, combined with good jurisprudence by which the courts enforce, recognise and protect appropriate interventions.
For more on the extent of municipal collapse and Sakeliga’s litigation strategy regarding Ditsobotla and local municipal collapse in general, see this statement.
Resources
Letter by Sakeliga’s attorneys to the President and National Executive
Letter by Sakeliga’s attorneys to the North West Premier and Provincial Executive
Sakeliga’s court papers
Previous punitive cost order against Provincial Executive