The South African town which had three mayors in six months
The Thabazimbi Local Municipality is so unstable that it has had three mayors in six months, with the problems escalating.
This was shared in a Select Committee on Cooperative Governance and Public Administration meeting on 5 August 2026.
The Thabazimbi Local Municipality is an administrative area located in the southwestern region of Limpopo Province, falling within the Waterberg District Municipality.
The main town in the area is Thabazimbi, which is known as the ‘mountain of iron’, referring to the lucrative iron ore reef first discovered in the municipality in 1919.
It has been mined since the 1930s, when iron and steel production started. Apart from iron ore, the Thabazimbi Municipality is surrounded by platinum-producing areas.
Agriculture is also a strong economic sector in the municipality, with farmers producing wheat, beans and maize.
The area is home to the Marakele National Park and numerous private game lodges and reserves, making eco-tourism and hunting key secondary drivers.
Despite its mineral and tourism riches, the municipality has experienced persistent governance, financial, and administrative collapse.
It has reached such concerning levels that the Limpopo Provincial Executive placed the municipality under administration.
However, this did not stop the governance in the municipality. Factional fighting has caused chaos in the municipal council.
The latest upheaval started on 28 February 2026, when a special meeting resulted in the Municipal Manager being issued with a notice of termination 3 March 2026.
The Municipal Manager hit back, convening a special council meeting on 17 March 2026, which resolved to remove the Mayor, Cllr Pilane, and Speaker, Cllr Sebata.
They were replaced by Cllr Tshukudu and Cllr Mampeule, despite a special meeting convened by the Speaker, which did not proceed as a result of a lack of quorum.
On 12 June 2026, the council removed the new Mayor and Speaker, replacing them with Cllrs Ndiweni, Sebata and Mashao as Mayor, Speaker and Chief Whip.
However, Tshukudu did not accept being removed as mayor and continues to operate as mayor, resulting in an unstable, dysfunctional council.
On 22 June 2026, the MEC convened a meeting with all councillors, and subsequently, on 25 June 2026, with municipal management, to address the impasse.
The Department of Cooperative Governance reviewed all council meetings and resolutions to determine the rightful Mayor and Speaker.
The analysis indicated that the meeting that removed the Cllrs Tshukudu and Mampeule was duly constituted.
“Therefore, the elections of Cllrs Ndiweni, Sebata and Mashao as Mayor, Speaker and Chief Whip were compliant with applicable prescripts,” the department said.
The MEC is scheduled to present the findings of the investigation to the municipal council in due course.
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What a strange story. It appears that these people are so desperate for their turn at the trough that they will go to any lengths to satisfy their greed, including stabbing each other in the back. Surely these halfwits are accountable to someone higher up the pecking order or is our government so out of touch with regional affairs that no one is even aware of this farcical situation? They all need to be given the boot and independent, non- politically aligned professionals should be appointed to run the municipality and report directly to the national treasury. Perhaps all of the municipalities who fail audits should be run in the same fashion, no excuses and no exceptions. I think that it would go a long way towards getting proper service delivery if the funds are used for the right purpose instead of going into some criminal’s pocket. The long suffering residents of SA deserve it.