Parliament’s Select Committee on Cooperative Governance and Public Administration is concerned about the state of the Impendle Local Municipality in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN)
The committee conducted an oversight visit on Friday after the KZN provincial government placed the municipality under administration because of governance and financial failures.
The visit also follows National Treasury’s decision to temporarily withhold the municipality’s July 2026 equitable share allocation.
Committee chairperson Mxolisi Kaunda says the municipality’s problems began after a vote of no confidence removed the mayor in 2024, triggering a period of political instability.
“So now we are ready to take the report to the NCOP and the NCOP will have to decide whether to support this intervention. But there are a lot of challenges, the instability started when there was a vote of no confidence against the mayor who was there on the 4th of April 2024, as well as the issues of unfunded budget. You can’t have the municipality spend the money they don’t have.”
Meanwhile, Kaunda says the municipality’s financial problems are being made worse by overspending. He says the municipality has a budget of about R54 million but is spending around R59 million. Kaunda says the shortfall is affecting the delivery of essential services, including the payment of employees, who have not received their salaries for more than three months.
“They are spending more than R54 million that tells you they are spending money they don’t have. A huge chunk of their budget goes towards the payment of the workers’ wages, that means the community is not getting the services, so if the municipality is in that state state it means it can’t be functional.”
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Credit: Celumusa Zulu
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