iLembe residents might lose out on R54.8-million in infrastructure repairs owing to poor municipal performance.

This after the National Treasury threatened to withdraw a portion of iLembe District Municipality’s Municipal Infrastructure Grant (MIG) and Water Services Infrastructure Grant (WSIG) earlier this month.

The grants are allocated by Treasury in an attempt to help municipalities keep up with infrastructure repairs and improvements that would not be possible from ratepayer funds alone.

iLembe received R231.8-million in MIG funding and R100-million in WSIG funding of which they had spent less than 40% at the 2023/24 financial mid-year mark.

This raised red flags for treasury, who indicated their intent to withdraw the R54.8-million earlier this month.

“National Treasury hereby proposes that a portion of the 2023/24 allocation to your municipality be stopped due to underperformance of the grant allocation(s),” said Treasury in a letter addressed to the iLembe municipal manager on February 12.

“Please be advised that in terms of section 38 (2)(a) of the MFMA you are required to submit, within seven days upon receipt of this letter, a written representation to the National Treasury regarding the proposed stopping of the allocation in question.”

The municipality had not responded to the Courier at the time of publication, but the Courier understands that a return letter was sent to Treasury.

A response from Treasury is expected next month.

In the mean time, residents wait to see whether poor management is going to directly impact their service delivery.

The iLembe annual report indicated water losses of 46%, showing the extent to which infrastructure maintenance is needed.

In 2024 alone, widespread water outages across the greater KwaDukuza town have drawn massive frustration from affected residents.

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