Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana. Image: Twitter/@GovernmentZA
Budget Speech: R1.4 billion allocated to municipalities
An unacceptable number of municipalities are experiencing weaknesses in governance, financial management, and service delivery, he said.
Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana. Image: Twitter/@GovernmentZA
Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana has allocated R2.8 trillion of total non-interest expenditures to provinces and municipalities over the next three years, including an additional R1.4 billion to fund the repair of infrastructure damaged by the tragic floods in various municipalities in 2023.
R531.7 billion is allocated to local governments, and R2.3 trillion for provinces, Godongwana said during the national budget speech on Wednesday.
An additional R105.5 billion rand is allocated to provinces over the next three years to cover the cost of implementing the 2023 public-service wage agreement, mainly in the education and health sectors.
“The provision of these additional funds will cushion the wage bill pressures faced by these critical, personnel intensive departments, while freeing up resources for capital investment and goods and services,” he said.
Budget allocated to fund the repair infrastructure damaged by floods
In relation to municipalities, Godongwana announced an additional R1.4 billion is provided for the municipal disaster recovery grant to fund the repair and reconstruction of infrastructure damaged by the tragic floods of 2023.
“Municipalities are the coalface of service delivery. Sadly, an unacceptable number of them are experiencing weaknesses in governance, financial management, and service delivery.
It focusses on tightening budget processes, ramping up oversight, increasing the skills and capacity of municipal employees, and driving investment in maintaining and building infrastructure,” he said.
Government adopts a multi-pronged approach to transform municipalities
To address these challenges, and to transform municipalities into engines of growth, government said they adopted a multi-pronged approach.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) welcomed the allocation of the budget, saying they will hopefully see some improvement in local and rural communities.
“We are deeply worried by the state of local government, with 36 municipalities routinely failing to pay their employees, and basic services deteriorating at an alarming rate.
The increase in municipal grants as well as intervention and capacity building programmes for 140 municipalities is welcome and will hopefully see some improvement in local and rural communities,” the union said.
