Treasury to strengthen its oversight of municipal finances
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The Treasury has agreed to take a more active role in monitoring municipal finances to help bring back financial stability and address the twin problems of corruption and political interference.
On Friday last week finance minister Tito Mboweni convened a meeting of his budget forum, a platform that comprises the minister, the country’s nine finance MECs and representatives of the SA Local Government Association (Salga), an employer body representing the country’s 257 municipalities, to discuss their sustainability.
The forum resolved that the Treasury will take a lead on local government financial management matters, while the department of co-operative governance & traditional affairs will monitor governance and service delivery efforts.
Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma’s spokesperson, Lungi Mtshali, on Monday told Business Day the department of co-operative governance & traditional affairs is happy with the streamlining of roles. “If we are to effectively deal with issues at municipalities, we must be clear what roles each department must play,” Mtshali said.
“What came out of the meeting is that Treasury agreed with us that we should not duplicate our roles in municipalities but rather we must complement each other.
“Our role is clear: we want to help municipalities improve the quality of their services and governance. The financial management aspect is Treasury’s function,” said Mtshali.
The Treasury said the meeting resolved that a “clear distinction” be made between the roles of politicians and that of administrators to resolve governance challenges in municipalities.
The parties agreed that “political intervention” should deal with political challenges that can’t be solved administratively.
The meeting resolved that it would require collective action to enforce legislative measures to address “consequence management and instil accountability, particularly in the case of poor service delivery, wastage of public funds and corruption”.
In his recent report on the municipal audit outcomes for 2018/2019, auditor-general Kimi Makwetu stated that only 21 of the 257 municipalities in the country achieved a clean audit, with irregular expenditure accounting for R32bn. More than R1bn was spent on consultants.
The total revenue for municipalities (excluding equitable share and conditional grants) in the 2018/2019 financial year was R226bn. National government financed the municipalities through equitable share grants of R55bn and conditional revenue grants of R43bn. However, 34% of municipalities ended the year in a deficit. The total deficit in local government was R6.29bn, with wages making up the bulk of expenditure (R91bn).
Municipalities, which are at the coalface of service ...
On Friday last week finance minister Tito Mboweni convened a meeting of his budget forum, a platform that comprises the minister, the country’s nine finance MECs and representatives of the SA Local Government Association (Salga), an employer body representing the country’s 257 municipalities, to discuss their sustainability.
The forum resolved that the Treasury will take a lead on local government financial management matters, while the department of co-operative governance & traditional affairs will monitor governance and service delivery efforts.
Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma’s spokesperson, Lungi Mtshali, on Monday told Business Day the department of co-operative governance & traditional affairs is happy with the streamlining of roles. “If we are to effectively deal with issues at municipalities, we must be clear what roles each department must play,” Mtshali said.
“What came out of the meeting is that Treasury agreed with us that we should not duplicate our roles in municipalities but rather we must complement each other.
“Our role is clear: we want to help municipalities improve the quality of their services and governance. The financial management aspect is Treasury’s function,” said Mtshali.
The Treasury said the meeting resolved that a “clear distinction” be made between the roles of politicians and that of administrators to resolve governance challenges in municipalities.
The parties agreed that “political intervention” should deal with political challenges that can’t be solved administratively.
The meeting resolved that it would require collective action to enforce legislative measures to address “consequence management and instil accountability, particularly in the case of poor service delivery, wastage of public funds and corruption”.
In his recent report on the municipal audit outcomes for 2018/2019, auditor-general Kimi Makwetu stated that only 21 of the 257 municipalities in the country achieved a clean audit, with irregular expenditure accounting for R32bn. More than R1bn was spent on consultants.
The total revenue for municipalities (excluding equitable share and conditional grants) in the 2018/2019 financial year was R226bn. National government financed the municipalities through equitable share grants of R55bn and conditional revenue grants of R43bn. However, 34% of municipalities ended the year in a deficit. The total deficit in local government was R6.29bn, with wages making up the bulk of expenditure (R91bn).
Municipalities, which are at the coalface of service ...
