Northern Cape govt concerned about poor state of municipalities

Northern Cape Co-operative Governance MEC, Bentley Vass

2 minutes

Northern Cape Cooperative Governance MEC Bentley Vass has expressed concern about the poor state of municipalities in the province after only two receiving clean audits.

The Auditor-General’s (AG) 2023-2024 report revealed a deteriorating financial state of municipalities with irregular expenditure standing at R 3.7 billion.

The AG’s report showed that most of them are struggling to collect revenue, as well as pay suppliers and have continued to use third parties as consultants.

The report also showed that poor performance was most prevalent in Free State, Northern Cape and North West municipalities and highlighting the high vacancy rate of critical positions as one of the challenges.

Vass says serious action is urgently needed.

He says, “As the government, we are committed in terms of transparency and making sure that all processes are followed to the letter, making sure that there are no issues in terms of irregular expenditure and in terms of how we appoint service providers in our institutions.”

“So it should be a transparent process so that at least people can ownup and take responsibility as a collective, so from our side as a provincial government we are going to monitor our municipalities closely, but also on the issue of municipal management we are going to take serious actions, where our administrators and officials are not performing we are going to act because it’s unacceptable.”

Opposition parties in the province say local government lacks the political will to address the challenges.

The Democratic Alliance (DA) MPL, Fawzia Rhoda says, “It is absolutely indignant that the Northern Cape Provincial Government cannot get their act together. This is a regression that has been coming year on year on. There is no political will for consequence management.”

The Economic Freedom Fighters’ (EFF) Provincial chairperson and MPL, Shadrack Tlhaole says, “The regressed in terms of what is happening in all the Northern Cape is because of there is no adequate staff appointment that are learned into that different field especially finance. We have municipalities with no municipal managers, everyone is just acting, that is the problem we are facing and it needs serious attention from the provincial government.”