Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana has stressed that the National Treasury is fulfilling its constitutional mandate with the decision to withhold the equitable share of 69 municipalities that have failed to comply with the Municipal Finance Management Act.
Addressing the media in Pretoria, the minister argued that many councils continue to adopt unfunded budgets, maintain irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure, while also neglecting to implement consequence management.
Godongwana says National Treasury simply wants municipalities to present a programme of compliance following which they will get paid.
“We are working with all of these municipalities and we’ve made progress and a number of them have responded. We have been able to get satisfactory answers by now, and we’re still dealing with the remainder from about 29 of these municipalities. They are the first fortunate ones who will get their money by next week Thursday. From our system we can instruct that they get paid but there’s BAAS and other systems of government which have their own date of payment. We are doing this thing on a weekly basis so money will be transferred to the relevant municipalities.”
Godongwana briefs media on R13.5bn municipal freeze
Credit: Naledi Mabitsela-Ngcobo
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