No quick fix for municipalities, says Mkhize
Co-operative governance and traditional affairs minister Zweli Mkhize does not believe SA’s ailing municipalities can be fixed overnight, but says progress has been made in distressed municipalities over the past year.
In an interview with Business Day, Mkhize said the right political leadership is necessary for municipalities to be turned around and that change must “cascade” from a national to a local level.
He was appointed as a minister in President Cyril Ramaphosa’s cabinet in February 2018 with a mandate to improve the performance of local government, which was left in a shambles after former president Jacob Zuma’s resignation.
Most of the municipalities’ finances are in distress and municipal debt is rising. Most prominent is the debt owed to Eskom and various water boards. Mkhize said this dire state has led to some municipalities using the equitable share they receive to pay for this debt.
“I want to say that we will turn this around, but I think we must be realistic because in some instances the systems are damaged,” Mkhize said, listing the political climate in municipalities as one of the challenges, as well as the need to act on fraud and corruption.
“It will ultimately happen, but I don’t think we must take a view that this will just happen overnight,” he said.
It was almost a year ago when he announced that 55 of SA’s 263 municipalities were “distressed” or dysfunctional. According to numbers in a document prepared by the department, in January 2019, out of the 55 municipalities, 25 showed improvement, while 30 showed none. A total of 29 municipalities were also under administration in terms of section 139 of the constitution, with seven of them in KwaZulu-Natal, eight in North West and five in Mpumalanga.
Mkhize said 2018 was mostly spent assessing the municipalities, after which interventions were planned that dealt with financial recovery, infrastructure and technical support, fighting corruption and dealing with political instability.
Teams were sent to give technical support to the distressed municipalities, which, according to Mkhize, resulted in the number of dysfunctional municipalities dropping.
In 2018 disclosures in the report, The Great Bank Heist, made headlines. The report highlighted, among other things, how municipalities unlawfully deposited money into VBS Mutual Bank, and how officials were allegedly bribed to ensure these investments were made.
Out of the 12 municipalities that still have money deposited at VBS, six had new mayors installed by the end of January this year. One mayoral position is still vacant. One municipal manager has been fired, one resigned, and seven are on precautionary leave.
The role of municipalities in the VBS saga is not the only case being investigated; by the end of January, 238 fraud and corruption cases were being probed.