42 Municipalities Have Now Complied With Treasury

Statement by Marina van Zyl MP – DA Spokesperson on Cooperative Governance & Traditional Affairs:

In just over two weeks, 42 municipalities have complied with National Treasury’s consequence management enforcement and will soon receive their funding tranches for July.

The DA backs Treasury’s decision to implement the law. The fast turnaround in consequence enforcement shows Treasury is right to have pursued this path.

Section 216 of the Constitution and the MFMA give Treasury a mandate to ensure hard-earned public funds are effectively used. As municipalities owe R161bn in debt just to Eskom and water boards, and have racked up R40.1bn in irregular expenditure this last financial year, a firm line needed to be drawn.

To avoid service delivery interruptions, Treasury is paying Eskom and water boards directly.

While Treasury made the right decision, it did not have to be this way.

Service delivery failures span decades of municipal mismanagement, and overwhelmingly ANC-led financial mismanagement.

Treasury’s intervention is an established practice and is not unprecedented. This is the fourth year Treasury has suspended equitable share payments. In each of these instances, municipalities have complied. When the law is enforced, processes work.

What this has also shown is the importance of working local governments.

Working local governments require voters to vote for that, and to do so requires being registered to vote.

Treasury interventions won’t be necessary if voters take up this voter registration weekend, get correctly registered, and make a clear choice: local governments that work!

National Treasury has put its foot down, and voters have the real power to do the same everywhere.