KZN Cogta announces austerity measures to cap wasteful spending at municipalities

The KwaZulu-Natal department of cooperative governance and traditional affairs (Cogta) today announced an array of austerity measures to help municipalities cut wasteful expenditure on non-core items, such as mayoral vehicles and security as well as municipal consultants, events, catering, cellphones and credit cards, and redirect funding towards service delivery to communities.

The austerity measures were announced by the MEC for KZN Cogta Nomusa Dube Ncube as she tabled the department’s budget for 2018/2019.

“Our own departmental austerity measures will now also apply to local government via a National Treasury circular which lists new cost-containment regulations that will be gazetted to become compulsory for all municipalities. In the past, such measures were mere guidelines, but now they are nonnegotiable,” Dube-Ncube said.

She said the new regulations limited the use of consultants and the cost of personal security for municipal office bearers.

The MEC said the cost of official vehicles for municipal office bearers was restricted to R700 000 or 70% of their annual package, flight tickets limited to economy class, and the number of municipal representatives in international events limited, as was their travel and subsistence.

“We are also announcing a total ban on the use of municipal credit cards as well as severe restrictions on catering, entertainment and advertising by municipalities. We will be putting in place an oversight mechanism with proper management of consequences for noncompliance by municipal office bearers, councillors and officials,” Dube-Ncube said.

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