The Greater Tzaneen Municipality’s mayor, Gerson Molapisane, disappeared off the public radar for at least a month and nobody knows exactly why. According to a source within the municipality the mayor has not been seen at council meetings or in his office for at least the past six weeks.
“We don’t know what’s going on as we have not seen the mayor here at work or in his office for a while now, but we have heard that he has been ill for a while and that he was in hospital,” said one of the employees at the GTM. “We know that he is not at the meeting in Blyde either.”
The “meeting in Blyde” this employee was referring to, was the three-day IDP Strategic Planning Session that the directors, managers and Councillors of the GTM were attending at the Forever Resorts Blyde this week.
According to another source within the municipality, Molapisane was admitted to hospital sometime during November.
Bulletin visited the hospitals in Tzaneen this week and none of them had any patient by that name on their registers. On Wednesday this week we received information that the mayor was released from hospital and was “recovering at home. All is well with him.”
We sent inquiries to Vutivi Makhubele, the spokesperson for the municipality and at the time of this article we were informed that the mayor was indeed on sick leave but that his medical condition was not public knowledge.
“The mayor is currently on sick leave,” said Makhubele. “A month now, his health is personal and not part of his work hence I can’t talk about it.”
Surely the health of the head of the municipality should be public knowledge in the interest of transparency and service delivery. Should the mayor be incapacitated and not able to perform his duties, surely there should be an acting mayor in his stead?
“The Mayor went through a medical procedure, he is now recuperating at home as per his doctor’s advice. Cllr Thabo Maunatlala is now acting on his behalf.”
