COGTA's Hlabisa to produce turnaround plan for dysfunctional municipalities within 21 days

CAPE TOWN - Cooperative Governance Minister Velenkosini Hlabisa said he would produce a turnaround plan for dysfunctional municipalities within 21 days. 

He was responding to the latest audit outcomes for local government in Parliament on Tuesday, which revealed a regression in the management of municipal finances since the 2021 polls.

Over seven billion rand in fruitless and wasteful expenditure has been registered, with 36 municipalities having regressed in their audit outcomes in the last financial year.

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Hlabisa said it was a focus area of the Government of National Unity (GNU) to deal with dysfunctional municipalities. 

Those in the Free State, Eastern Cape and Northern Cape will enjoy particular attention. 

"In this period of 21 days, we will want to get details of who is there, what are the qualifications of the municipal manager because if you have made the wrong deployment, you will hardly get the correct product."

A former mayor himself, Hlabisa said that the best turnaround plans would, however, fail if the right people were not in place to do the job. 

"We will have to talk to political parties deploying these people. We will raise this matter sharply that this is a turnaround plan but it must be accompanied by political will." 

Portfolio committee chairperson Zweli Mkhize said he was concerned by the regression in audit outcomes and would be interrogating municipalities closely in the coming months, including whether there’d been political interference.