A year after local government elections on November 1 2021, a total of 14 municipalities in North West have failed to use R138-million earmarked for service delivery.
In response to questions by the DA, the North West provincial treasury said the municipalities returned R138-million in conditional grant funding to the National Revenue Fund.
“The DA is concerned by the rate at which municipalities in the North West are bleeding funds meant for service delivery,” said the DA’s Freddy Sonakile.
“The municipalities in the province requested a rollover of R302-million of conditional grant funding. This means infrastructure development to the tune of R302-million was not realised in the 2020/21 financial year.
“This occurs in a province that has fallen victim to an excessive decay in existing infrastructure resulting in poor, and in some areas, non-existent service delivery.”
Sonakile said of the 14 municipalities, only nine were granted a rollover of 54% of the requested amount.
“Moses Kotane, Greater Taung, Lekwa Teemane, Dr Ruth Segomotsi district, City of Matlosana and JB Marks municipalities were only granted a portion of their request. This means that they failed to indicate that these funds were committed to projects as per section 22 of the 2020 Division of Revenue Act.
“Some of the affected grants included the municipal infrastructure grant worth R126.3-million, regional bulk water grant worth R70.8-million and the water service infrastructure grant worth R19.5-million.”
The DA further stated that the Rustenburg rapid transit system, which is yet to be completed 10 years later, is the area of major concern.
“There is also the construction of Lerome bulk water supply meant to service the residents in Moses Kotane and the construction of community halls and road upgrades in Tswaing, Ditsobotla and Greater Taung municipalities.
“According to provincial treasury, Lekwa Teemane is the municipality that lost the highest amount of its municipal infrastructure grant allocation at 47%, followed by Kgetlengrivier and Kagisano-Molopo municipalities at 35% and 31% respectively.
“This totals over R42.5-million that has been forfeited which, according to the provincial treasury, will have a negative impact on service delivery,” added Sonakile.
He noted further that the municipality that returned the funds have also failed to collect over R1.8-billion for services from government departments.
“It is now clear that the crippling of municipalities, and ultimately the provision of services, is an intentional move by the ANC-led government. This is an insult to the residents who rely on these municipalities for service delivery.”
The DA called on the North West standing committee on public accounts to summon accounting officers from the affected municipalities to account for the failure to spend the much-needed grants, and further explain what consequence management “they have taken against what is a clear crime against the residents of this province”.
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