Our Viewpoint | Dysfunctional municipalities

The deteriorating financial situation of several municipalities across KwaZulu-Natal has once again revealed the depth of the crisis councils are grappling with. In his speeches, President Cyril Ramaphosa often makes the point that municipalities occupy the front line of service delivery. They are responsible for providing water, sanitation, refuse removal, and maintaining local infrastructure.

When they become financially dysfunctional, the consequences are immediate and severe. Workers go unpaid, essential services deteriorate, and communities are left to bear the burden of institutional collapse. The situation in municipalities such as uThukela and Impendle illustrates how governance failures can quickly spiral into a full-blown crisis.

However, in recent years, there has been an additional problem: the failure by the national government to allocate adequate financial resources to municipalities. It is a fact that KZN municipalities owe Eskom, the provincial water board and service providers billions of rands. The bulk of the sitting mayors and MMs inherited these huge debts from their predecessors, who are not available to answer why the debts were allowed to spiral out of control.

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What is required is for both the national and provincial governments to conduct a financial analysis of each municipality to determine the true financial position of each local government. Where such an assessment identifies corruption and mismanagement as the trigger of the crisis, then appropriate steps should be taken against whoever is responsible.

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