Sakeliga requests COGTA to implement section 139(7) intervention in Ditsobotla 

Sakeliga has requested the National Executive to urgently fulfil its constitutional obligation to directly intervene in Ditsobotla Local Municipality.

In Ditsobotla, service delivery has collapsed, state failure abounds, and the municipality is run – in the words of the provincial legislature – by gangsterism.

The National Executive’s section 139(7) intervention should replace the failed and misdirected section 139(5) intervention by the Northwest Provincial Executive, who ignored service delivery and limited its “interventions” to ‘plans about plans’ for restoring the municipal bureaucracy.

This has produced zero service delivery improvement.

Instead, the National Executive should now take direct responsibility for service delivery – as obligated by section 139 and 139(7) of the Constitution – until such time as a functional local administration emerges.

In our letter today to Velenkosini Hlabisa, the Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, we invite him to meet with Sakeliga.

Sakeliga's Mission: Building Scalable Solutions to State Failure

• Join thousands of dedicated, mission-aligned funders
• Protect our communities from a failing state
• Secure a flourishing economy in the place you love

Our Mission & Impact

We propose to discuss the situation in Ditsobotla and other municipalities and towns where businesses and other supporters of Sakeliga are affected and can contribute to recovery.

We also inform Minister Hlabisa that, in the event of failure by the national executive to intervene as it is constitutionally obligated to, Sakeliga intends to institute legal proceedings to ensure a national government intervention under section 139(7) and/or other legal proceedings. We will be strengthened in this by a court order in or favour from October 2023, which make provision for Sakeliga to approach the court for 139(7) national intervention should the 139(5) provincial intervention fail.

For the full letter to Hlabisa, containing extensive record of the past three years’ developments and the shameful and unjustified legal obstructionism by the local, provincial, and national governments, click here.

Sakeliga’s involvement in Ditsobotla relates to our objective of helping local business organisations restore a flourishing economic order in their towns. We use measures such as litigation to reform existing governance and service delivery where feasible, while developing alternative structures and solutions where continued state failure necessitates it.

The decay in Ditsobotla Local Municipality, in towns such as Lichtenburg and Coligny, has been widely reported, with numerous small and large local businesses relocating to more favourable business environments.