News24’s Out of Order index, the first data journalism project of its sort in South Africa, suggests 43 municipalities, over and above the 87 already red-flagged by government, are in the danger zone of collapse.
The 43 additional municipalities are not reflected in other official lists from the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) or the Auditor-General as being delinquent or under administration.
They include municipalities across five provinces: KwaZulu-Natal (22); Eastern Cape (9); Limpopo (7); Northern Cape (3); and North West (2).
A report submitted by Cogta to the parliamentary local government portfolio committee in August 2021 indicated that a further 111 local municipalities were classified as being at medium risk of deteriorating further. Only 16 were rated as stable. The index suggests more of those medium-risk municipalities may have deteriorated further than estimated.
The data draws on the most authoritative sources available, such as National Treasury’s budget data (used to calculate budget allocations to municipalities), the Auditor-General’s reports, and Statistics South Africa.
News24 said that, unlike other similar assessments of local conditions, it had included not only pure financial metrics but also measures of unemployment, poverty and basic service delivery to households.
Some factors are within the direct control of the municipality, and others are not, but all affect their trajectory as sustainable entities.
News24 said that even though the data sources it drew on were among the most robust available in South Africa, a weakness lay in the statistics supplied by the municipalities to national government and Statistics SA.