ANC wants unspent municipality funds redirected to other departments to improve service delivery

‘Allow national or provincial government to spend [the money] on your behalf’

26 July 2023 - 08:00 By SINESIPHO SCHRIEBER
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ANC NEC member and deputy minister of Cogta Parks Tau says more needs to be done to improve service delivery in municipalities that fail to spend grant money.
ANC NEC member and deputy minister of Cogta Parks Tau says more needs to be done to improve service delivery in municipalities that fail to spend grant money.
Image: Parks Tau/Twitter

The ANC says municipalities must redirect unspent funds to other departments to improve service delivery.

ANC national executive committee (NEC) member and co-operative governance and traditional affairs deputy minister Parks Tau said this was the party's plan to improve services in local government.

Tau participated in a two-day ANC workshop to help the worst performing municipalities.

“We want the money to go to the services needed in communities. Allow the national or provincial government to spend [the money] on your behalf.

“Let's not deprive the people in your community of access to services needed. The NEC has already made a decision on it,” Tau told Newzroom Afrika.

He said the NEC and co-operative governance department would implement a plan to boost capacity of struggling municipalities.    

“We will prioritise municipalities in distress. We will send engineers and specialists when needed to boost capacity in municipalities.” 

Earlier this month auditor-general Tsakani Maluleke revealed KwaZulu-Natal only spent R251m of the R5.8bn received in grants, loans and reprioritised budgets to respond to the April 2022 floods. 

Nine municipalities in North West returned more than R340m to the National Treasury after not spending it this year. The municipalities include the City of Matlosana, Ruth Mompati, Rustenburg, Moses Kotane, JB Marks, Ratlou, Ditsobotla and Mamusa.

In his recent weekly newsletter, President Cyril Ramaphosa said he was not impressed with municipalities failing to spend conditional grants while infrastructure was dilapidating.

“National Treasury recently reported more than half the municipal infrastructure grant was being spent by municipalities. Part of the problem is municipalities, especially smaller municipalities, lack implementation capacity,” he said.

The ANC previously said unspent grants by municipalities would be channelled towards plans to resolve load-shedding.

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