Although North West municipalities are on the brink of collapse due to old and crumbling infrastructure and a lack of resources, some of the municipalities have failed to utilize their Municipal Infrastructure Grants (MIG) due to a lack of planning and money had to be sent back to the Treasury.
The MIG is a conditional grant intended for infrastructure development, which includes electricity, stormwater management, sanitation and municipal roads among others.
However, a report compiled by the North West Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs has shown the Ditsobotla, Ratlou, and Mamusa local municipalities as having spent zero percent of their MIG allocations, which has affected service delivery negatively.
An example is that Lichtenburg which falls under the Ditsobotla Municipality, had an allocation of R41 million, yet failed to provide basic services like waste collection, and water and sanitation.
“In terms of the R41 million allocation indeed we are staying at 0 % because things have not been right at the municipality. We have advanced reasons for the turnaround plan and are still awaiting approval. But the 0% expenditure is hereby confirmed,” said the Ditsobotla Local Municipality’s acting municipal manager, Mothusi Oagile.
The mayor of the Ratlou Local Municipality, which does not have large economic centers within its jurisdiction, Matlhomola confirmed that his municipality has failed to utilize the allocated R33 million.
“Let me confirm this embarrassing report. I must also confirm that among the challenges that we had that resulted in this situation, were challenges in the Project Management Unit where they could not register projects.
“But I can confirm that we have been able to overcome that particular challenge at the moment. We have been able to register projects, with the hope that we will be able to spend the allocated grant.
“And we have also mandated the acting municipal manager to apply consequence management because we cannot turn a blind eye to this kind of a situation,” Jafta said.
North West Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs MEC, Nono Maloyi, said consequence management must be implemented in municipalities, which fail to utilize their MIG.
He said it’s unacceptable that municipalities fail to use their grants, while residents are lacking basic services.
“If there is money for service delivery and somebody is not spending that money, while our people are living in these conditions that we see today. With Potholes in our streets, street lights not working, and garbage all over while there is money. It means someone is not doing their duties. It means these real problems.
“Then our people have got a right to protest when such things are happening. They have got a right to go to the streets and say these people that you have deployed are not doing what is expected of them. And as the community, we demand that this money that has been allocated to these municipalities must be used.
“The grants are meant to eradicate municipal infrastructure backlogs and ensure the provision of basic services such as water, sanitation, roads, and street lights. The municipalities must develop a recovery plan detailing how they intend on spending their allocations before the end of the local government financial year in June.
“A team of officials from both the department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs and Provincial Treasury will be dispatched to municipalities to assist them to develop and implement the financial recovery plans and to monitor progress,” Maloyi said.
The North West municipalities were allocated R200 million MIG, and have only managed to spend 34% of it.
