Municipalities not spending optimally on infrastructure
KWAZULU-Natal Finance MEC Ina Cronjé has expressed concern over the continued failure of municipalities to optimally spend their capital budgets, which cater mainly for infrastructure projects.
She warned that if the Municipal Infrastructure Grant was not spent it would be withheld by the National Treasury.
“There is a dire need for proper planning on capital projects at local government level. Not only does underspending deprive our people of service delivery, but it also exacerbates current backlogs.”
Cronjé was tabling the municipal budget performance review for the second quarter of 2012/13 yesterday.
The report revealed that almost all the districts in KZN, including the eThekwini Metro, had spent below half of the total capital budget by the end of the second quarter of the 2012/13 financial year.
Only the uMzinyathi district was an exception, spending 73 percent of its capital budget. Districts such as uMgungundlovu only spent a paltry 19.8 percent (R150 million) while uThukela spent 14.6 percent (R68.3m).
The eThekwini Municipality only spent 27 percent (R1.4 billion) of its R5.3bn capital budget.
Of the total spent by eThek- wini on infrastructure, the bulk (R414m) was spent on housing, R339m was spent on water and waste water management infrastructure, R207m on electricity infrastructure and R260m on road transport.
Cronjé said many municipalities cited supply chain management processes for underspending, but there was no need for these to cause delays.
“They (municipalities) simply have to plan better and allow enough time to follow all due processes. A budget without an implementation plan and vice versa remains a dream and is bound to fail”.