'We don't need your help': KZN municipalities rebuff Treasury assistance

Some of the KwaZulu-Natal municipalities that are struggling to deliver services have rejected the KwaZulu-Natal Treasury’s attempts to intervene and assist them with handling their budgets and service delivery, said Finance MEC Francois Rodgers. 

He revealed this during an interview with the media soon after delivering the provincial budget of R158 billion in Pietermaritzburg on Tuesday. 

Out of the total budget, Rodgers allocated R1.9 billion to Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, whose MEC Thulasizwe Buthelezi would, during his department’s budget speech, allocate it according to the needs of the municipalities. 

Rodgers said the defiant municipalities, whose names he could not divulge as he did not have their list during the briefing, refused to work with the Municipal Task Team, which was established to assist them in compliance with the legislature.

“The problem is some municipalities don’t want us in their municipalities, and they made it very clear to the Auditor-General.

“Some of them told us that ‘we don’t need your help’, which makes the situation very difficult,” said Rodgers.

He said the provincial legislature was currently engaging with political principals of such municipalities to get them to comply. 

He also said the provincial treasury has an Infrastructure Task Team, which was established to assist the municipalities with infrastructure development. 

“But at the end of the day, those government spheres need to want to work with us, not against us,” he said. 

When asked why the municipalities were defiant, Rodgers said: “I cannot tell you why they don’t want to work with me, maybe bayasaba (they are scared).”

One of Rodgers’ right-hand men showed this reporter an internal memorandum, which head of provincial finance Carol Coetzee addressed to the MEC on July 26, 2024, with a list of five municipalities that did not submit their “data string” to the department in the 2023/2024 financial year. They were Umuziwabantu, uMsinga, Dannhauser, Umzumbe, and Impendle municipalities.

In the document, Coetzee said the provincial Treasury was engaging the municipalities regarding the instances of non-compliance “as well as sending a formal written correspondence highlighting the potential risk and remedial action required”. 

In a bid to turn around the crumbling service delivery, Premier Thami Ntuli last month announced the establishment of the Premier's Msunduzi Working Group, co-led by former Economic Development, Tourism and Environmental Affairs MEC Ravi Pillay, to assist Msunduzi Municipality to improve its service delivery. This group is similar to the Presidential eThekwini Working Group, which President Cyril Ramaphosa announced in April last year. 

Commenting about defiant municipalities, EFF caucus leader Mongezi Twala said they lack “good ethical leadership”. 

He said some municipalities were struggling to even pay the salaries of their employees. 

“This was because the allocation of an equitable share was not used for the purpose. 

“You can put as much money as you have in these municipalities, but so as long as you don’t have the political will in leadership to ensure that they have proper control in the financial management systems in the local government sector, you are still going to have these municipalities facing the distress on spending, providing basic services to the people.

“We need a total overhaul in these municipalities and have people who have interest at heart on services and giving our people decent shelters and drinkable water.”

He said there were a number of municipalities that were expecting to be allocated equitable shares but “have serious issues on unfunded mandate”. 

“We are going to be writing to Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs and Treasury requesting investigations to certain municipalities because there have been monies allocated,” said Twala.

bongani.hans@inl.co.za