More needs to be done here

Today we report that almost half of the Eastern Cape’s 33 municipalities are in distress with the national government suggesting that the provincial government intervenes.

Finance minister Nhlanhla Nene identified 15 of our municipalities that were under-performing.

While this is distressing but it is hardly shocking – if the behaviour of politicians in the various municipalities is anything to go by.

However it is unacceptable that with all the challenges we face as a province that we still find ourselves in such a position. This is still happening even though, over the years, reams of research papers and reports have been produced – showing just what is wrong with our municipalities.

It is also inexcusable that we still have municipalities that cannot spend their budgets – let alone deliver the basic services that they are meant to.

Yet there seems to be little drive from the political leadership to sort out the mess. Perhaps this is because the ANC still enjoys the support of the very same voters that they continue to treat with disdain.

The state of municipalities in the Eastern Cape shows just how much the citizens of this province are being taken for granted by politicians.

In a response to the DA’s spokesman for cooperative and traditional affairs Kevin Mileham, Nene said the municipalities’ balance sheets showed that the “municipalities with unfunded budgets are not able to pay their total creditors within the prescribed thirty-day period”.

However it looks that the collapse of local government is not only a problem in the Eastern Cape as Nene said that 40% of municipalities throughout the country could not plan and budget properly.

“It is not that the municipalities don’t have the money. It’s because they plan to do things they don’t have to do. So it’s actually poor planning, poor budgeting.

“Municipalities are at the coalface of service delivery. If we do not have capacity for municipalities to execute their duties, then we have a problem,” said Nene.

This can only suggest that age old problem in municipalities still persists – where politically-connected people are appointed to positions for which they are not qualified.

With only a month to go before the end to the current financial year, this means that we will once again end up with municipalities that have to return money back to the Treasury. Last month we reported that Buffalo City Municipality (BCM) had only managed to spend 40% of their R1.63-billion budget by the end of March 2018.

Although BCM is not part of the 15 municipalities mentioned in Nene’s report, but like them, our metro is likely to underspend by the end of the financial year.

Ironically the metro overspent its overtime budget – spending R103-million against a budget of R76-million.

This means that employees claimed for working more hours than is regulated while the poor spending on the overall budget showed that not much work was done. But as it is often said, the voters get the government they deserve.