Distressed municipalities spent less than 4% of budget on maintenance — Cogta

The Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) is working to halt the deterioration of the country’s worst-managed municipalities.

The portfolio committee overseeing the department received an update from officials on Tuesday regarding the progress of interventions implemented at poor performing municipalities.  

A Municipal Turn Around Plan (MTAP) instituted under section 139 of the Constitution is in effect in 38 municipalities across the country.

No consideration for maintenance

Service delivery failures have plagued residents across South Africa, with at least two municipalities in every province on Cogta’s distressed list.

Ageing infrastructure is often cited as a key problem, with the blame placed on a lack of foresight.

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A presentation by Cogta officials showed that distressed municipalities lacked an infrastructure master plan that would allow for the prioritisation of maintenance and refurbishment projects.

The portfolio committee was told that the distressed municipalities were spending, on average, roughly 4% of their budget on maintenance.

As many as 64 municipalities had fallen into the distressed category since 2021, with Cogta stating that 39% of municipalities spent 1% or less of their budget on maintenance.

Cogta noted that this had led to preventative maintenance not being effective and continued deterioration of infrastructure assets.

Difficulty in retaining staff

Compounding these issues is the excessive level of debt owed by municipalities to Eskom and bulk water suppliers.

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However, Cogta’s interventions noted how there had been no targeted use of municipal grants allocated for the select purpose of carrying out maintenance.

As of the end of the 2023/24 financial year, the number of distressed municipalities had improved to 35, while 161 remained “at risk” based on their audit results.

Cogta was not in a celebratory mood, observing that “improved performance has not translated into service delivery and governance”.  

As a result, the department noted an “inability of local government to recruit and retain the required staff and a lack of financial resources relative to the scale of the needs in communities”.

No corruption cases

Portfolio committee member, uMkhonto weSizwe Party’s Visvin Reddy suggested roping in “municipal experts” from the accounting, engineering and related fields to guide current leaders.

He said bodies representing important industries related to municipal governance had many retirees and former industry leaders ready to lend their expertise.

“We need to bring all these retired skills that we have. Bring them back and put them in a team that will start to move into what we have described as distressed municipalities,” said Reddy on Tuesday.

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Other members of the portfolio committee asked what had been done to hold officials responsible for mismanagement to account.

“I don’t hear the department speaking on the issue of corruption. “We also demand to know how many cases have been opened by municipalities,” asked the EFF’s Hlengiwe Mkhaliphi.

“We know very well that we are in this situation because of corruption. You can call it wasteful expenditure or unfunded budget, but at the end of the day, someone is benefitting,” Mkhaliphi insisted.

Top 10 worst municipalities

The MTAPs are specific to the service delivery failures of each municipality but focus on everyday issues.

Cogta also has a list of 10 priority municipalities that it aims to remove from the distressed list by June 2026.

The 10 critical municipalities include Kopanong, Mafube and Maluti-A-Phafong in the Free State, as well as Ditsobotla and Mamusa in the North West.

Thabazimbi in Limpopo, Thembelihle in the Northern Cape, Enoch Mgijima in the Eastern Cape, Umzinyathi in KwaZulu-Natal and Emfuleni in Gauteng round out the top 10.

At least six areas of Emfuleni’s municipal governance are under Cogta guidance, including water, sanitation, waste management, roads and electricity.  

Across those areas, 23 separate interventions were undertaken, with 12 in later stages of execution — although some have completion deadlines of 2027.

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