Q&A with Zweli Mkhize on frozen equitable share transfers to 69 municipalities

Could this drastic step have been avoided if parliament’s oversight committee had been doing its job properly?

Actually, it’s not about parliament not doing its oversight job properly; it’s about municipalities not taking seriously their responsibility to account for funds.

Isn’t it your responsibility to ensure monitoring, accountability and consequences?

It’s the responsibility of each national and provincial executive authority and each municipality. If there are irregularities, they need to find out about them and act so that there is accountability.

So what’s your role?

Parliament oversees to check that they’ve done what they should have done.

Didn’t the auditor-general (AG) last year flag the failure of parliament to do its oversight job?

The report was not about parliament; it was about each municipality. And therefore parliament was being called upon to ensure that oversight helps to correct the situation.

Didn’t you promise monitoring, accountability and consequence management a year ago?

Yes, but maybe our understanding is not the same. What we said was that negative audit outcomes have been going on for a while. We were coming in to find stronger mechanisms to ensure oversight, accountability and consequence management at municipalities.

So why a year later is the finance minister freezing their equitable share transfers because he says they can’t keep underperforming with no consequences?

As a result of tight oversight, the minister could have done this five years ago, each and every year. So we’re saying the culture of oversight has to be tightened. It needs municipalities to deal with their capacity, to deal with their systems for consequence management.

Clearly they haven’t, so surely the buck needs to stop somewhere? Isn’t that with you?

It stops somewhere else, and we’re insisting that the executive authority take action. Part of the reason the Treasury is doing what it’s doing now is because parliament is insisting that there has to be action; they can’t just let things go on. We need to call on provincial and national to act; this is the chain of command.

Didn’t you say last year you were going to ensure Gauteng acted on the situation in Joburg and Ekurhuleni?

We have had a number of engagements with the MEC and premier. Some of the things are being exposed because the portfolio committee has been sitting on them. The last meeting we held in parliament was a joint sitting with Scopa. It had never happened before that you got the municipalities being made to answer. It’s a process of correction that will take a while.

Meanwhile, according to the AG, the situation in those municipalities is getting even worse.

You do audits in retrospect. Right now we’re dealing with the audit of 2024/25. So you are putting pressure now, and the effect of it is going to be slowly showing over the years. We’re not letting it go. That is why we’re supporting the Treasury. They must tighten the pressure.

When will there be consequences?

Going back, there’s a very poor record of consequence management. But going forward there will be consequences.