The Presidential Working Group that was assigned to investigate what led to the governance collapse in eThekwini has completed its work.

The team was appointed by President Cyril Ramaphosa in April last year and led by Mike Mabuyakhulu.

On Tuesday, Mabuyakhulu confirmed that his team has completed its work and has briefed the ANC leadership in KwaZulu-Natal.

“Yes we have finished our assessment of the eThekwini situation and have briefed the ANC on the outcomes,” said Mabuyakhulu.

He added that the public will be informed soon as to what exactly went wrong and the solutions to remedy the situation.

The group was said to have included the local government expert and former eThekwini municipal manager, Dr Mike Sutcliffe, and former director-general in the Presidency, Dr Cassius Lubisi.

The team is said to have been deployed to Johannesburg Metro for the same work.

Last week, there were rumours that Ramaphosa himself would oversee the work of eThekwini while other top seven members would focus on other metros. This was said to be necessitated by the party’s fear of losing metros in the local government elections next year because of poor governance; however, this was denied by both Mabuyakhulu and the party’s national spokesperson Mahlengi Bhengu-Motsiri.

She said the National Executive Committee members that were announced to assist the provinces were continuing with their work.

Reacting to the report, ANC provincial convener Jeff Radebe said he was excited and hoped that it would improve the situation in eThekwini.

The party is expected to use the report when assessing the work of the deployees in the city that has been besieged by water and infrastructure challenges for years. When the newly reconfigured leadership under Radebe was announced, it said it would embark on a drive to assess the work of the municipalities in the province, particularly those that are governed by the ANC.

Radebe said the caucuses of the party in the municipalities not under the ANC will also have to account for the work they have done to hold those in charge accountable for poor service delivery.

Radebe expressed his disappointment at the performance of many municipalities in the province which had to return more than R7 billion to the National Treasury after failing to spend it.

eThekwini alone was said to have failed to spend close to a billion rand on an infrastructure grant, which included an allocation for Go! Durban bus project which has stalled for years.

willem.phungula@inl.co.za