SIU to investigate Mogalakwena Local Municipality

President Cyril Ramaphosa signed a proclamation on 5 March 2021 authorising the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) to investigate allegations of corruption and maladministration at Mogalakwena Local Municipality in Limpopo. The proclamation authorises the SIU to look at alleged serious maladministration in connection with Mogalakwena’s affairs, improper or unlawful conduct of the municipality’s officials, as well as unlawful appropriation or expenditure of public money or property. The SIU will also probe unlawful, irregular or unapproved acquisitive acts and transactions; practices having a bearing upon State property, and intentional or negligent loss of public money or damage to public property; and investigate serious harm perpetrated on the interests of the public. This comes four years after PARI researchers’ in-depth case study of the municipality that traces in detail how local party-state conflicts are embedded in broader contests within the African National Congress (ANC), and how the resultant factionalism can produce rupture and collapse in the municipal council and administration. It presents substantive evidence from interviews and archival records, showing how political intrusions, lawfare, securitisation and social movement politics have all contributed to rendering the municipality a site of perpetual instability for which there are no obvious remedies. Read the research report HERE , along with the following journal articles: Phadi,M., J. Pearson and T. Lesaffre (2018) ‘The Seeds of Perpetual Instability: The Case of Mogalakwena Local Municipality in South Africa’, Journal of Southern African Studies , 44(4): 593–611. Pearson, J. (2019) Document Wars and the Local Archives: The Case of Mogalakwena Local Municipality, South African Historical Journal , 71(2): 242-62. Pearson, J. (2020) ‘Paperwork and power plays: contestation and performance at a Limpopo municipality’, Transformation : Critical Perspectives on Southern Africa 103: pp. 59–82. Lesaffre,