Maluti-a-Phofung is one of the very poor municipalities in the Free State; as of 2011 over 82% live below the poverty line.[3] Prior to 1994, the area was relatively prosperous with over 250,000 people employed in the textile and furniture industries, mostly at low wages.[3] The new South African government terminated industrial subsidies. That and labor agitation for higher wages made the factories uneconomic, and over the next decade most of the factories closed.[3] The last one closed in 2010.[3] At present government is the largest employer followed by a weak retail employment. The municipality itself has been in substantial debt for decades, and owes a considerable debt to both the regional water and electrical utilities (R3,769 million).[6][7]
Municipal services
The failure to deliver adequate municipal services has been a chronic problem since at least 2000.[6][8][9][10][11][12] As a result, there have been a number of protests by the populace, among which was the one in Harrismith in 2004.[9]
In 2018, local residents held a mass protest concerning the failure to provide municipal services.[6] The protest turned into a riot, shopping malls were looted,[6][13] and one man was fatally shot.[14] As a result, Cogta (the Free State Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs) intervened and administration was removed from the mayor and local council and placed directly under Cogta,[15][16] a move welcomed by the South African Municipal Workers' Union.[17]
As of June 2022, there have been some improvements, with delivery of water stabilising, and a better relationship with Eskom.[18]
The 2021 election saw the African National Congress (ANC) lose its majority for the first time. Although it still finished with the most seats, a rival grouping led by the MAP16 Civic Movement, founded by a group of ANC councillors who had been expelled for voting to unseat the ANC mayor, who was facing corruption charges, formed a coalition to take control. Maluti-a-Phofung became the first local municipality in the Free State not to be governed by the ANC.[19]
In 2019, the African National Congress (ANC) expelled sixteen of its municipal councillors (fifteen ward councillors and one PR councillor) for defying a Provincial Executive Committee (PEC) decision by siding with opposition parties to remove executive mayor Vusi Tshabalala. All fifteen ward councillors contested the by-elections as independent candidates in their respective wards on 28 August 2019, of whom ten were elected. The ANC managed to retain five wards, despite strenuous canvassing by the provincial leadership and former premier Ace Magashule. The table below depicts the new composition of the council.[22][23]
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