CoGTA Unveils Plans to Assist Struggling Municipalities As Service Delivery Remains Affected in SA
- The Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs want to help struggling municipalities
- 41 municipalities in the country are currently under administration, with many of them repeat offenders
- CoGTA MEC for KZN Rev Thulasizwe Buthelezi added that they wanted to focus on previously neglected areas
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The Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA) plans to turn around the fortunes of South Africa’s struggling municipalities.
Many municipalities nationwide struggle to function, leading to a severe lack of service delivery.
But which are the problem areas, and what help do they need? Briefly News takes a look.
Municipalities need help paying off debts
One of the big issues facing municipalities lately is the soaring debt owed to service providers. CoGTA Minister Velenkosini Hlabisa recently announced that 18 municipalities in the country owe big sums of money to Eskom. He made the announcement soon after CogTA had to step in to assist the cash-strapped Emfuleni Municipality.
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The municipality could not afford to pay its employees for September after Eskom claimed the monies owed to it. The power utility took the municipality to have a court order granted to the municipality's bank account.
Eskom was able to recoup some of the debt, while Emfuleni was left without any funds available for staff salaries.
The minister added that there were other municipalities like this and that they were looking to assist them in preventing another situation like the one at Emfuleni. One way in which Hlabisa hopes to turn around the fortunes of these institutions is by getting government departments to pay the municipalities what they owe them. He added that he wrote letters to all government departments that owe money to municipalities, providing them with a deadline to do so.
“The municipalities can’t provide services to government departments, and then government departments choose not to pay municipalities what they owe. We gave all the departments up to the end of December, that they must pay what they owe,” he said.
41 municipalities under administration
In response to a parliamentary question, the minister also confirmed that 41 municipalities nationwide are currently under administration. As a result, provincial governments now have more oversight powers due to the council’s inability to lead them.
KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) and North West are the two provinces that have the most municipalities needing provincial intervention, with 10 and eight, respectively.
12 of the 41 municipalities have also been under administration for five years or longer. Umzinyathi District Municipality in Northern KZN has been under administration since October 2016. While many of the 41 municipalities are not first-time offenders, none compare to North West’s Ditsobotla Local Municipality. Ditsobotla has been placed under administration eight times since May 2008.
GPI bodes well for Western Cape
Good Governance Africa (GGA) released its Government Performance Index (GPI) earlier this year, which provides an analysis of the state of local governance within the country’s local, district, and metropolitan (metro) municipalities.
According to the GPI, the top five best-performing municipalities are all based in the Western Cape.
They are Swartland Local Municipality, Drakenstein Local Municipality, Saldanha Bay, Breede Valley, and Overstrand Local Municipality.
The five worst-performing municipalities are from either the Northern Cape (NC) or the North West (NW). They are Joe Morolong Local Municipality (NC), Ratlou Local Municipality (NW), ǃKheis Local Municipality (NC), Mahikeng Local Municipality (NW), and Siyathemba Local Municipality (NC).
You can view the full report here.
CoGTA to focus on water and electricity
CoGTA is looking to bail out municipalities and solve some of the issues plaguing smaller municipalities.
Speaking to Briefly News, CoGTA MEC for KZN, Rev Thulasizwe Buthelezi, said they are committed to solving the issues of water and electricity, with a focus on previously neglected rural areas. Many municipalities are faced with water-related issues, with water running down streets while taps run dry.
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He added that the GNU was committed to fixing these issues.
“The issues stem from the failures of the past administration. There has been rampant corruption at local government level, and the GNU is committed to fixing it,” he said.
Rev Buthelezi added that they were also taking action against municipalities that failed to deliver.
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Source: Briefly News
