The ANC struggles with unpaid bills, late contractor payments, and fiscal chaos, threatening both service delivery and the party’s credibility.
While President Cyril Ramaphosa, leader of the country and the ANC, was celebrating an undeniably successful G20 summit in Joburg, his comrades have been proving that his party and fiscal competence are like oil and water… they don’t mix well.
The latest sign is that an application for a default judgment has been lodged in the High Court in Johannesburg for non-payment of R20 million for election campaign services.
The party failed to defend the matter when it was first brought to court earlier this year.
This comes at a time when reports say party employees are getting paid late yet again.
Not only that but, as Our City News reports on our pages today, the ANC-majority Johannesburg metro is the second-worst municipality in the country when it comes to settling debts with contractors.
The city takes an average of 10.3 months to pay its contractors, while Mangaung holds the title for the worst payment record with 10.6 months.
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This is based on the auditor-general’s Consolidated General Report on Local Government Audit Outcomes 2023-2024, which was updated in August.
Part of the problem is that the city has employed what it calls a “sweeping” arrangement whereby money earned by a specific entity goes into a central pool.
Often this means that there is no money for those specific entities to settle their own bills.
It goes without saying that this is no way to run one of the richest – supposedly – cities on the African continent.
It also explains why service delivery has been going downhill faster than water from a burst pipe.
If this country does not adhere to the millennia-old principle of paying what you owe and doing so without delay, what hope is there that we will ever be able to pull out of our financial death spiral?
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