Free State Cogta MEC Sakie Mofokeng says councilors who have applied for jobs in the municipalities they serve are opposing provincial interventions aimed at fixing dysfunctional local governance, amid accusations he is using Section 139 administrations to consolidate political control. (Facebook)
Free State Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs MEC Sakie Mofokeng says he faced pushback from some councilors after discovering they had applied and been shortlisted for job interviews in the same councils where they serve.
According to provincial insiders, councilors were trying to secure jobs because they were unsure whether they would return as councilors after the 2026 municipal elections in November.
“You will find councilors in their own municipalities who have applied and been shortlisted for job interviews to become employees of the same municipality they lead,” Mofokeng told the newspaper. Post and guardian in an extensive interview last week. “If you intervene to correct that specific situation, there is opposition.
“You can never have a councilor who applies and gets shortlisted, as happened with councilors from Mohokare Local Municipality who wanted to appoint themselves. There is no way the provincial government can interview me for a position in administration while I am serving as an executive.”
Some councilors in Mohokare Local Municipality have accused Mofokeng of dismissing an elected mayor and a council-appointed municipal manager and replacing them with people from his office.
A source in the municipality told the publication that Mofokeng did so to secure resources through the municipality to finance his ANC campaign before the next provincial conference.
Another source told the M&G that in communities where Mofokeng had no people to manipulate, he used failed service delivery to gain control.
“Once he puts the municipality under administration, he uses his people as administrators without control of the municipality so that he can do whatever he wants. The reason he does this is because he has no control over the municipality.
“This is simply a struggle for resources and has nothing to do with fixing local government. I am a member of the ANC. When you say you are placing these municipalities under Section 139 when there is an organizational deployment committee policy in place, you are essentially saying that the organization is failing because the residents come from the ANC.”
Mofokeng dismissed the allegations, saying they were part of a fightback campaign by those affected by the crackdown.
His opponents, he said, had resorted to defamation and malicious accusations that could never be substantiated, adding that everything done by the provincial government and Cogta was beyond expectations and open to investigation.
“I can confirm that we have not fallen short anywhere when it comes to the decisions we have made,” Mofokeng said. “The MEC will never be appointed without the provincial executive council (exco). It is a misconception that Mofokeng is running amok unless they provide evidence on how Mofokeng hired his people.
“The beneficiaries of capture and disorder will fight back because they want to protect their immediate benefits, but we will not hold back. We will push back.”
Mofokeng said in every municipality where the government had intervened, including those placed under section 139 administration, decisions were made by the provincial government and not him alone.
He said the province had deployed exco representatives to struggling municipalities and that those representatives were appointed by exco, not him.
“The argument that people are running amok is far from the truth. These are exco resolutions and decisions of the provincial government taken in accordance with the laws of the land.
“The law is instructive: if municipalities cannot meet their constitutional obligations, the provincial government, through Cogta, must intervene,” he said.
“There are people who will not be happy that we intervene. Some of those people are in government and some are at political level.
“We have experienced setbacks and we don’t mind that because we know this is part of the area. We tackled it head-on and are happy that we pushed through it. We are present in a number of municipalities to ensure that we can close the gaps.”
Part of the reason why Free State municipalities had failed to fulfill their mandates was that people with little to no expertise had been appointed to senior positions, he said.
Municipalities would hire senior managers from other municipalities who had either been fired due to corruption scandals or presided over the collapse of those municipalities.
“I am pleased that municipalities have started recruiting the right staff in the right way and that is what we are asking for. Municipalities that do not comply with the law can be taken to court so that we can seek declaratory judgments against appointments that are wrong and illegal.”
A director or city manager was a permanent employee, Mofokeng said. “Once you appoint that person, he will be there for years. If it is the wrong appointment, it will harm the people and the municipality and we cannot allow that.”
Municipalities in the Free State are struggling to obtain clean audits. Many have been unable to provide basic services due to the systemic corruption that the province has been battling for years.
In February during her Address of the provincePrime Minister MaQueen Letsoha-Mathae pledged to restore struggling municipalities and called 2026 a “year of decisive action” for local government reform.
Mofokeng said the provincial government has prioritized clean audits and improved audit outcomes since taking office, adding that audit action plans have been adopted to help municipalities turn around.
“The first phase was to stabilize and stop the downward spiral. The second phase was to see improvements and we are happy that we no longer see excessive decline,” he said, adding that they were encouraged by progress in municipalities, including Maluti-a-PhofungDihlabeng, Kopanong, Setsoto and Matjhabeng.
However, he admitted that some municipalities were stagnating, including Mangaung Metro.
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