The newly formed ANC Provincial Task Team in KwaZulu-Natal has been holding engagements with various sectors of society. Picture: X/ANC
Image: X/ANC
The ANC in KwaZulu-Natal wants the failure of municipalities to spend municipal grants to be a dismissible offence. The party leaders stated that it is intolerable for billions of rand meant to deliver infrastructure to the public, to be returned to the National Treasury by municipalities.
The convenor of the ANC KZN PTT,Jeff Radebe, made these remarks following concerns raised by Nkosiyezwe Vezi, the municipal manager of the Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma municipality, regarding the state of municipalities in the province.
Vezi was speaking at an event organised by the ANC PTT to address professionals in Durban. He was representing the Institute of Local Government, which is tasked with ensuring professionalism in public service.
He said, "It's a known story in the country that everywhere in local government, there are challenges. The only way the ANC can restore the confidence of our people is, among other things, by reviving the desire for clean and accountable local government," he said.
"The local government is the sphere closest to the voters, and through it, the ANC communicates with its voters. An ANC-governed municipality must be a model municipality," he added.
Radebe expressed his discontent with municipalities that are bankrupt, where roads are riddled with potholes, raw sewage runs in the streets, and corruption, fraud, and nepotism are rampant.
He stated that some of the worst-run municipalities are those governed by the ANC, where the party holds unchallenged power. He questioned how such a situation could be allowed to happen, saying, "Voters will never be happy when they have no running water, when refuse is not collected, when street lights are dead, and when raw sewage flows into their homes, and where the local economy is stagnant."
Radebe called on the ANC in KwaZulu-Natal to hold its local government leaders accountable. "Municipalities that fail to spend capital grants should be summoned to explain. Let us account for how my municipality failed to spend R31 million when people do not have a road. How did it happen that money had to go back to the treasury when there is a municipal manager and professionals appointed to do the work? Maybe there is something that we do not know that we are yet to hear. How do we justify that the money has gone back to Pretoria, but they have been complaining about the road for the past five years? Call us, let's account."
He further said: "In municipalities that are bankrupt, the mayor does not know where the money went, the municipal manager does not know, and the CFO does not know, but the invoices for work that has not been done are getting paid. Payment certificates for work that is incomplete have been signed off to enable those involved to be paid fully for the work that has been partially done. These are some of the things that the ANC must boldly talk about to restore confidence in the voters."
Radebe also questioned municipalities having large salary bills.
"Municipalities spend above a threshold on salaries; the municipality ceases to be an instrument of service delivery and instead creates an employment bureau dishing out jobs and patronage. At the end of the day, it is unable to perform its function, yet it spends 100% on salaries. What are we really paying for?"
He concluded by stating that there are about nine municipalities in KwaZulu-Natal that have not spent more than R7 billion of their allocated budget in the previous financial year, with capital works of more than R2.6 billion unspent. "That must be a dismissible view in my books that you return money to the treasury. Why would you budget in the first instance for money that you know you are not going to be using?"
"What is even more damaging is that the Minister of Finance borrows some of the money. One of the biggest expenditures in the budget is the debt service cost, so we end up paying interest on borrowed money that has not been used. So I want to encourage mayors to take steps against those recalcitrant managers who do not spend money that has been appropriated by the local government."