Department can’t fund municipalities
THE eThekwini Municipality and some district municipalities will have to stand on their own two feet financially because KwaZuluNatal’s stretched Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs Department cannot afford to fund all municipalities.
MEC Nomusa Dube-Ncube revealed this yesterday when her department appeared before the finance portfolio committee for budget hearings at the provincial legislature in Pietermaritzburg.
The department received a budget of R1.3 billion which would cater for, among other matters, municipal administration (R33.8 million), municipal finance (R28.9m) and municipal performance, monitoring, reporting and evaluation (R14.4m).
Municipal infrastructure was allocated R128m while economic development got R236m.
“Due to financial strain we had to exclude eThekwini and a few other municipalities from the budget because they can work with their own resources without extra funding from the government,” she said.
However, the Department of Human Settlement told the same committee this week that it had allocated more than R1 billion to eThekwini for housing. This was far more than other municipalities.
Dube-Ncube said her budget had been 1.7 percent this year.
The 2011 census showed KZN’s population had dropped from department’s cut by 21.1 percent of the toal population in 1996 to 19.8 percent and this had prompted the National Treasury to cut financing to the province.
She was concerned the diminished budget would affect the realignment of municipalities. The department had a plan to merge some municipalities while splitting others, and also to cut down their numbers from 61 to 54.
She told The Mercury that Mbabazane, outside Estcourt, Imbabazane in Wasbank and Hlabisa in northern KZN would be affected.
“We have approached the National Treasury to assist with funding the project,” she said.
The department was also tracking former employees who had received a bursary to study further with an agreement that they would work for the department for a certain period but who had left after completing their studies.
About R295.6m has been allocated to traditional affairs and rural development.