Treasury will release R7.1bn to municipalities
Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana said the National Treasury would begin releasing the remaining withheld local government equitable share transfers from Friday.
The funds were withheld from 69 municipalities over failures to comply with the Municipal Finance Management Act.
Godongwana said the measure was introduced to improve financial accountability.
He confirmed a total of R7.1-billion would be paid to qualifying municipalities that have met financial compliance requirements.
READ: Treasury defends withholding of funds from 69 municipalities as 'corrective measure'
“The decision follows the comprehensive assessment undertaken, including the active monitoring of compliance by the affected municipalities after National Treasury withheld transfers.”
The minister said affected municipalities would receive letters with strict conditions that they would have to meet before the next tranche of funds is released to them in December.
Meanwhile, the South African Municipal Workers Union has welcomed the move but lambasted Treasury for withholding the transfers.
“There was simply no logic in taking municipalities that were already experiencing severe financial difficulties, withholding an important source of their revenue and then expecting their financial position and service delivery capacity to somehow improve,” the union said in a statement.
Samwu said municipal workers across several provinces have either not received their July salaries, received them late or faced uncertainty about when they would be paid.
“In some municipalities, workers were already owed salaries from June,” the union lamented.
However, Godongwana, who previously stressed that the move should not be seen as punitive, maintained that the unpaid salaries were not a consequence of Treasury's decision.
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