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The metro spent only 41% of the regional bulk infrastructure grant it was allocated for the 2023-24 financial year.
Picture for illustration. Councillors taking part in the inaugural council meeting of the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality at the Feather Market Centre in Gqeberha. Picture: @NMandelaBaymuni/Twitter
Nelson Mandela Bay metro municipality in the Eastern Cape may have escaped being listed among the seven worst-performing municipalities by the auditor-general (AG), but residents and civil society organisations are concerned about underspending on its infrastructure budget.
A recent AG report showed most municipalities have poor financial management, with seven receiving the worst possible outcome for several years in a row.
The seven are Makana local municipality and Sundays River Valley in the Eastern Cape, Nketoana in the Free State, North West’s Ditsobotla, Lekwa-Teemane and Ratlou, and the Western Cape’s Kannaland.
Only 41% spent
Nelson Mandela Bay Metro spent only 41% of the regional bulk infrastructure grant it was allocated for the 2023-24 financial year. It had to return the money to the National Treasury.
Trade union federation Saftu called for a forensic investigation into the metro’s failure to spend its infrastructure grant, describing it as a “betrayal of the working class” by the municipality.
The metro was the only one allocated the grant as an intervention to address its infrastructural backlog, particularly in the townships and informal settlements.
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Fiscal mismanagement in municipalities
Various AG reports have established that endemic financial mismanagement in municipalities causes residents to suffer.
The problem is repetitive, especially in local government, despite the AG’s efforts to assist them in improving their financial management.
Nonetheless, the government has failed to impose stricter penalties for mismanagement.
‘Criminal negligence’
Saftu expressed deep outrage at the AG findings, saying it confirmed what workers, the unemployed and the poor long knew the municipality was “being run to the ground by incompetence, mismanagement and disregard for working-class communities”.
“This is criminal negligence in a city facing chronic water insecurity and failing sanitation systems,” said Saftu’s local secretary Mziyanda Mcanda.
The federation expressed concern that the metro had a 67% vacancy rate at senior management level, the highest of any metro in the country.
It demanded that the vacancies be filled with competent, accountable and community-oriented people and that there should be “no more cadre deployment for corruption” in the process.
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