Municipalities in W Cape get thumbs up

Not one is dysfunctional, no need for provincial interventions

NOT a single municipality in the Western Cape is dysfunctional and there is no need for provincial interventions. Local Government MEC Anton Bredell has given the assurance that all 30 municipalities in the province are functional.

He was responding to Zweli Mkhize, the Minister of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs, who at a media briefing earlier this week said at least 55 municipalities were dysfunctional, while several other problems were plaguing municipalities.

“In fact, the latest audit outcomes from the auditor-general, who awarded 80% of our Western Cape municipalities with clean audits in terms of the Municipal Finance Management Act (MFMA),” Bredell said.

“This is a remarkable story given that in 2009 there were no clean audits in the province.

“The Western Cape is also one of the only provinces where no municipality has an overdue account with Eskom.”

Bredell said there were no provincial interventions in any Western Cape Municipalities following two successful interventions in Oudtshoorn and Kannaland.

“In addition, we had 10 municipalities on the Back to Basics programme. One – Cape Agulhas – has already met all its targets and has been taken off the programme, and another – Swellendam – is about to be taken off the programme, too,” Bredell said.

Mkhize said 7% percent of the country’s municipalities had been classified as well functioning.

“About 31% of the municipalities are reasonably functional. Thirty one percent are almost dysfunctional. The remaining 31% are dysfunctional. The ability of municipalities to plan, deliver, operate and maintain infrastructure is dependent to a greater extent on the capacity of officials to execute their responsibilities.

“The technical nature of the responsibilities demands requisite levels of expertise and skills, mainly in the field of civil engineering,” he said.

“The current situation in municipalities indicates that there is limited in-house experience for managing infrastructure projects, handling tender documents and meaningfully interacting with contractors. There is also limited scheduled maintenance of infrastructure taking place.

“These challenges make it difficult for municipalities to spend the funds they obtain from the national government to assist them with infrastructure development,” Mkhize said.

He added that the municipal infrastructure grant programme was aimed at providing grant funding to municipalities to implement infrastructure that would allow them to provide at least a basic level of service to poor households.

“There are 226 municipalities in the country that are receiving the Municipal Infrastructure Grant funds,” he said.

He added that in the past five years a total of R3.4billion in municipal infrastructure grants transfers was stopped and was reallocated from underspending municipalities to better spending municipalities.

“This is not ideal as it has the inadvertent consequence of penalising municipalities with a lower capacity, and hence punishing poorer communities,” he said. – Staff Reporter