Mkhize rolls out rescue plan

Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) Zweli Mkhize said yesterday he wants to empower the country’s municipalities with key personnel in a bid to help them deal with governance and administration, financial management and service delivery issues.

Speaking in Pretoria at the sending-off ceremony of 81 newly appointed engineers and town planners to support distressed municipalities, Mkhize said the ability of municipalities to plan, deliver, operate and maintain infrastructure was dependent on the capacity of officials to execute their responsibilities.

Mkhize said it was not ideal that R3.4 billion in municipal infrastructure grants had been reallocated from underspending municipalities to better-spending municipalities.

“I made a commitment that Cogta would, through our implementing agent, the Municipal Infrastructure Support Agent, urgently support 55 struggling municipalities to spend their infrastructure allocations.

“I said we would deploy district technical support teams to the affected municipalities,” Mkhize said.

“I said this was not ideal as it tended to penalise municipalities with a lower capacity and, hence, punish the poorer communities.

“This cannot continue. Rather, alternatives must be found to support service delivery to poorer communities. We want to solve, once and for all, the problem of money being sent back due to failure to spend it by municipalities.”

Only 7% of the country’s municipalities are classified as well-functioning.

The situation in the country has been such that only 55 municipalities out of 257 had qualified engineers leading their technical divisions.