Member of Parliament for Kgatleng East, Isaac Mabiletsa, has described the local government amendment bill as 'disgusting, ridiculous, irrelevant and provoking'.

He said on Monday that Local Government Minister, Ambrose Masalila, should go back to the drawing board and come up with a law that makes sense that will also improve service delivery and efficiency at council level.

He said there is no consistency in the way councils operate, and that there is urgent need for the system to be overhauled.

He was responding to a presentation by Masalila who said that the main objective of the Bill is to amend the local government District Councils Act in order to provide for election of council chairpersons to be done every two and half years in accordance with standing orders.

"The Bill also amends the Act so as to prohibit members of councils from concurrently holding positions as public officers," he said.

He said that the system of electing council chairperson and mayors every year does not give them enough time for implementation of the programmes.

"These positions have in the past been used to test people or deliberately throw them into the deep end knowing that they would have the opportunity to elect people of substance in 12 months time. This procedure needs to be changed by prescribing a longer term of office in the law," he said.

Masalila said there is always a conflict of interest in situations where councillors are employees of council and other agencies and the bill prohibits council staff and other public employees from becoming councillors at the same time. He said that the Attorney General's Chambers is working on a statutory instrument that will be brought before Parliament in the near future.

Mabiletsa argued that councils should pay councillors better in order to attract professionals, adding that low wages were the reason why night watchmen, cleaners, and other council employees doubled as councillors.

Specially Elected MP, Moggie Mbaakanyi, disagreed with the length of time saying what was important was for councillors to elect people who can perform. She said there was need for government to give mayors executive powers to make decisions that will improve development in the respective towns and cities.

She stated that commissions have been appointed in the past and their recommendations were that there should be executive mayors but it seems government was slow in implementing them.