This comes after Limpopo Premier Cassel Mathale approached the Constitutional Court to rule on whether or not his province had the right to draft legislation on the management of the province's finances. He was joined by premiers of five other provinces - Gauteng, Eastern Cape, Free State, Mpumalanga and North West - in the court application.
Yesterday, the court upheld a ruling by former chief justice Sandile Ngcobo, which declared the act unconstitutional and ruled that Limpopo did not have the authority to pass legislation with respect to its own financial management.
The court declared that the Provincial Financial Management Act of the provinces is unconstitutional, and ordered them to fix the problem by September 2013 in order not to cause any undue administrative disruption in the interim.
The case followed an incident in which Cassel refused to sign the Financial Management of the Limpopo Provincial Legislature Act after expressing doubts about the competence of the legislature to pass a bill dealing with its own financial management, and decided to get clarity from the courts.
In handing down her judgment yesterday, Judge Sisi Khampepe also ruled that the legislation of the North West province, which had since 1997 been regulating the general management of its legislation, be declared unconstitutional.
Khampepe said the government should not drag its feet in addressing the issue.
"It has tried to address this in several ways, most recently through the introduction of provincial legislation," said Khampepe.
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