Even amid the persistent water crisis in some parts of the country, South African municipalities returned R1bn in unused Regional Bulk Infrastructure Grants (RBIG) to the National Treasury over the last five years.
The minister of finance Enoch Godongwana gave this figure in response to a parliamentary question by ActionSA MP Malebo Kobe.
Kobe wanted to find out what was the total amount of the grant funding that was returned to the National Revenue Fund by all municipalities in each financial year in the past five financial years.
She also wanted to find out whether consequence management and/or remedial steps have been taken to prevent the continued surrender of infrastructure grant funding intended for service delivery.
The RBIG is a conditional capital grant to municipalities meant to develop new, refurbish, upgrade and replace ageing bulk water and sanitation infrastructure of regional significance, the water and sanitation department said.
In his reply on April 30, Godongwana provided the figures which showed that municipalities in North West returned R309m of the R1bn in the past five years. These figures showed that R248m was returned in the 2021/22 financial year.
The stopped funds may be reallocated to municipalities that demonstrate capacity to spend, ensuring that service delivery objectives are met
Other provinces whose municipalities returned large amounts of the grant were the Eastern Cape (R261m) and Free State (R234m). Gauteng municipalities used up all of their allocated funding.
Godongwana said the Treasury has issued a guiding circular in terms of section 32 of the Municipal Finance Management Act (MFMA) pertaining to unauthorised, irregular or fruitless and wasteful expenditure and how to deal with consequence management in local government.
He said the responsibility for consequence management lay with the municipality to initiate and institute processes as prescribed by section 32 of the MFMA.
Godongwana said within the Division of Revenue Act prescript, the Treasury implements various mechanisms to prevent the continued surrender of infrastructure grant funding intended for service delivery. This includes withholding, stopping, reallocation and conversion.
He said if a municipality fails to comply with grant conditions or exhibits persistent under-expenditure, the Treasury may stop the transfer of funds. The stopped funds may be reallocated to municipalities that demonstrate capacity to spend, ensuring that service delivery objectives are met.
When all the steps are still not sufficient and conditional grant funds are not spent in terms of the purpose of the grant and its conditions, the Treasury can request for these funds to be returned to the National Revenue Fund.
When these funds are not returned by the date determined by the Treasury, the said funds can then be offset from future conditional grants and equitable share of the affected municipalities.
TimesLIVE
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.