Assets amounting to millions of rands, belonging to the Enoch Mgijima Local Municipality, were auctioned off in Queenstown on Friday following a lawsuit by a construction company.
According to DA Councillor, Chris De Wet, the municipality owed a construction company millions of rands for a community hall that was built in Sterkstroom.
De Wet said the hall was built by the company before the three local municipalities Tsolwana, Inkwanca and Lukhanji were merged to form Enoch Mgijima Local Municipality back in 2016.
He said equipment sold at the auction was irreplaceable adding that the municipality was currently bankrupt and would not be able to repurchase the items sold.
De Wet said the municipality also owes Eskom a total of R16 million.
"Just for an example, vehicles that would cost us R2.4 million were sold for R300 000 to R400 000, so it's an absolute disaster for this community," he said.
He said the fault lies completely with the municipality's mayor and the municipal manager, who failed to negotiate with the company.
"I also want to blame the mayor and the speaker - they were nowhere to be found and they did not answer their phones. I believe that this whole tragedy could have been avoided if from the start it was dealt with correctly," said De Wet.
He added that the municipality should have defended themselves from the start if they believed that they didn't owe the company money. "They should have employed decent attorneys to defend them and then take the matter to court. They have allowed this matter to go to the extent where a default judgement was taken."
Algoa FM News was seeking comment on the matter from the local municipality at the time of publishing.
