Zooming in on municipal finances

JOHANNESBURG: The Treasury is set to introduce firmer regulations to give force to savings on travel, consultants, catering, office furniture, events and staff benefits in municipalities.

This was announced by Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan as he tabled his Medium-term Budget yesterday. He said far more can be done to improve financial performance and delivery of services.

“Additional cost-saving measures for municipalities were issued by National Treasury in March 2016. These include savings on travel, consultants, catering, office furniture, events and staff benefits. These will shortly be given force in regulations,” said Gordhan.

He has laid the challenge of improving the financial performance of local government on councillors who were elected in the recent local government elections.

“This requires zero tolerance for corruption and wastage of public resources, improved revenue management and better maintenance of infrastructure,” said Gordhan, adding he would be demanding to see how the major metros address the challenges they are facing.

According to Gordhan, this will provide citizens and other stakeholders with access to comparable, verified information on the financial performance of each municipality.

He said for the period left in the financial year, the proposal was that provinces and municipalities should be allocated 43.4 and 9.1 percent of the total budget, respectively.

According to Gordhan, the current protests at local government level signalled “unresolved social challenges”.