Staff Reporter
Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma has urged political leaders in Free State municipalities to ensure the local authorities hire qualified officials who can implement projects efficiently and on time in order to avoid returning funds to national treasury due to non-use.
“Do you know how painful it is for us when Municipal Infrastructure Grants (MIG) are returned because you did not utilise them?” said Dlamini-Zuma when she addressed mayoral committee members and municipal managers from across the Free State in Bloemfontein on Tuesday.
The minister’s engagement was part of the preparations for the District Development Model Presidential Imbizo set for Saturday at the Dr Rantai Molemela Stadium in the city.
Dlamini-Zuma urged municipalities to have the right people in key positions and be able plan ahead in order to deliver services on time and utilise their budgets.
“Sometimes you don’t have engineers to assist you develop projects and implement them and then the money has to come back,” she said.
“We don’t like that just as much as you don’t like it.
“So, we want to work with you to ensure that you are able to utilise the resources that you are given.”
The minister said she was also concerned that in some municipalities in different parts of the country infrastructure is not maintained or repaired.
In some communities, she said, sewage is flowing into people’s yards and houses.
She said her department has now worked out a plan with national treasury to allow municipalities to use part of their MIG allocations to repair and maintain infrastructure instead of returning all unused funds.
“So, working with treasury, we have now said the MIG grant . . . municipalities should be allowed to use part of it to repair infrastructure.” Dlamini-Zuma said.
“This was not allowed in the past – it was strictly for building infrastructure, but it’s pointless building new infrastructure if you can’t repair what you have,” she explained.
Municipalities are supposed to set aside about eight percent of their budgets for repairs and maintenance, but according to Dlamini-Zuma, this is not happening.
Last month, Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana published a Gazette providing information on the adjustment of allocations to municipalities in the 2021-22 financial year.
Godongwana said the purpose was to avoid transferring more funds to municipalities that have unspent funds in order to avoid fiscal dumping and address the possibilities of funds being misused.