Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana has continued to warn of the poor state of finances of several municipalities.
Godongwana reiterated in the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) that 43 municipalities were in financial trouble and would not be able to get out of the woods soon.
He said he was currently in charge of one municipality in Mpumalanga through a court order.
Godongwana, who was addressing the NCOP during the adoption of the Budget, said attention must be paid to municipalities, as some were in a precarious position.
“One of the challenges we need to talk about is the municipal sphere of government. I sympathise with the view that there may be to some extent some challenges with the vertical equity, but to reduce the challenges in municipalities to a financial problem I do not think is helpful, because what it does say is we are not going to address these challenges we are talking about. We are aware as we are sitting here that I am technically a mayor of Lekwa in Mpumalanga, through a court decision. Forty-three other municipalities throughout the country face similar challenges. I think if we downplay the challenges facing those municipalities, we are going to be unfair to those municipalities,” said Godongwana.
In the medium-term budget policy statement last month, Godongwana had also warned that other than the 43 municipalities in financial trouble, another 100 could be in trouble.
He said this was a serious problem that needed attention.
The new councils have been constituted after the November 1 elections with municipal public accounts committees to be established to keep an eye on the finances of the municipalities.
These bodies would hold officials and politicians accountable for expenditure in councils.
The attorney-general had been concerned about the lack of consequences with billions of rands lost through corruption and irregular expenditure.
POLITICAL BUREAU