Mayor insists they will solve Makhanda’s many problems as hundreds gear up to demand her removal

25 Feb 2025

Hundreds of protesters, led by Archbishop Nkosinathi Ngesi, will march in Makhanda tomorrow, demanding the removal of mayor Yandiswa Vara as water and other services once again collapse in the iconic university town.

The Archbishop of the Ethiopian Episcopal Church in Makhanda, and a well-known cleric in the university town, Nkosinathi Ngesi will on Wednesday lead the first in what residents promise to be a string of protests to demand the removal of the Makana Local Municipality’s mayor, Yandiswa Vara.

Makhanda is an iconic and historic town in the Eastern Cape and home to Rhodes University.

Ngesi said they are expecting hundreds of people to join.

“We couldn’t even bathe on Christmas because there was no water,” he said. “We must buy our water at Pick n Pay, but what about those who can’t?”

“People are suffering, especially the elderly and children. We want the mayor out. She has been here for years and she can’t show us a single thing that she has done.

“You know,” he said, “when the Special Investigating Unit came to town the people were celebrating like that day that the Springboks beat the All Blacks. We are so gatvol. We want the politicians out. Give us a competent administrator who can run this municipality until the next elections.

“The mayor has already rolled two Volvos while we are still driving our donkeys,” he said.

Ngesi said the march on Wednesday will be the first step in their campaign. “We will not rest. The Human Rights Commission is on their way here. We want to bring charges against these people. There are parts of our community who now haven’t had water for a month. Also, some of them are still having to use the buckets.”

They hoped to meet a representative from the office of the minister of cooperative governance and traditional affairs to hand over their demands.

These include: An end to supply chain corruption; ANC councillors “must stop promoting unlawful procurement contracts”; disaster management plans, water service plans and a proper spatial development plan must be drawn up; contracts signed by the municipality must be made public; an end to unauthorised wasteful and fruitless expenditure; repair dilapidated municipal buildings, fix potholes, pipe bursts, massive water leaks, blocked drains and sewage; and put up streetlights.

Municipality insists money is the problem

In August, the Auditor-General, referring to the 2022/23 financial year, said the Makana Local Municipality had underspent conditional grants by 100% and it was the worst performing in this regard in the country.

In a report before Parliament the municipality was described as having poor service delivery and financial mismanagement and was deficient in monitoring and performance.

But for the current financial year both the MEC for cooperative governance and traditional affairs, Zolile Williams, and council speaker Mabhuti Matyumza said the municipality was making great strides in spending its conditional grants and is the best performing in its district.

Yet, Vara insists that money is their only problem – they need more of it. She and Matyumza said they will keep on saying this until the President and the premier give them more.

However, their claims that old age is the only problem with the town’s collapsing water infrastructure does not ring true.

The mayor promised to strengthen political oversight through changes to her mayoral committee.

The Special Investigating Unit is probing almost all the multimillion-rand projects implemented in the municipality, including the Makana Bulk Sewer Upgrade in 2019 (flagged by the Auditor-General), professional engineering services for groundwater development projects, and the appointment of implementing agents for water conservation and demand management.

There is no approved water service plan. A highly qualified engineer, Reynhardt Britnell, was appointed by the national Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs to save the water system in the Makana Local Municipality. However, before he could attend his first meeting to provide feedback on what he found at the municipality he was threatened not to do so. Fearing for his life, he had to leave town and has been waiting for the police to conduct a security assessment to facilitate his safe return.

Daily Maverick is in possession of no fewer than three letters from the Amatola Water Board threatening to take back its water trucks because of non-payment.

Sibabalwe Mgangatho, the account expenditure officer in the municipality’s budget and treasury department, was arrested last month and appeared in court on 3 February on charges of fraud and money laundering. But Matyumza, who rightly pointed out that her employment preceded her arrest and the Hawks investigation wasn’t flagged in their background checks, added during a press conference on Monday: “There is nothing criminal about being charged. It doesn’t make you an animal.”

The Makana Citizen’s Front has pointed out that the municipality kept ghost councillors, who were removed from council by court order, on their its since May 2024, “exposing the municipality into a serious financial loss and as a result of your negligent behaviour you have exposed the municipality into an unauthorised, irregular and wasteful expenditure”.

This party has also started asking questions about the use of a deregistered company to do the property evaluations in the municipality.

Late in 2024, the municipality was ordered to pay R634,000 in damages to its former director of engineering and infrastructure, Asanda Gidana, for appointing her without the qualifications required by law, and then, two years into her contract, firing her because she lacked the necessary certifications.

She also faced a charge that she facilitated “prepayment” to a service provider of R2.6-million for a pump “without conducting due diligence”, even though prepayment had been forbidden. Municipal manager Pumemele Kate also signed off on the payment, as did the chief financial officer, Nomfundo Ntsangani.

The office of the municipality’s technical services department was condemned and the municipality faces a huge equipment crisis owing to non-payment of suppliers.

Read more: Makana on its knees as water and sewage services all but collapse amid broken equipment crisis

Read more: SIU launches comprehensive investigation into Makana municipality’s five-year service delivery crisis

Read more: Reprieve for Makana municipality after Eastern Cape treasury claws back half of unspent grants

On Monday, Vara admitted that ratepayers owe the municipality R750-million. She said they were in the process of addressing this.

Daily Maverick is in possession of three letters from the Amatola Water board demanding payment of about R15,000 a month per truck for the use of three water trucks.

Yet, during the current water crisis, which left the Grahamstown Correctional Facility as well as the Settlers Hospital and several communities without water, Gift of the Givers was asked to step in to provide humanitarian relief. The municipality publicly thanked its own teams.

“Gift of the Givers have been flooded by calls from Makhanda calling for our intervention,” the organisation’s Ali Sablay said. “The first calls came from Joza. One after the other settlements reached out to us, clinics and schools also called us… The most distressing call for the day was about the prison. The prisoners had not had water for meals, sanitation or drinking water for days when they called. We don’t call it an intervention anymore. Our teams had been there since 2019 on a permanent basis.”

He said they are also helping in Komani, which faces similar problems. “We will be sending our trucks once again for short-term solutions. A more permanent solution must be implemented. The same thing happens year after year. But we will help. We know of the dire situation at Settlers Hospital as well.”

On Monday, Vara remained upbeat that they would solve all problems in the municipality. She said the infrastructure in the town was old and there were on average about three pipe bursts a day.

Meanwhile, several community members reported that they were given wheelie bins by municipal officials on Tuesday - on the condition that they don’t march. But Anele Mjekula from the municipality said the distribution of the bins was just part of the day-to-day programme of the municipality.

“Today’s handover of wheelie bins to Nkanini residents is part of an ongoing municipality programme. We also handed over wheelie bins in Sun City and we will continue distributing wheelie bins beyond the march. Makana Municipality is on a drive to improve waste collection to ensure cleanliness all around Makhanda and surrounding areas.” DM

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Municipality insists money is the problem