The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) has warned of dire consequences if the country fails to fix its local government structures and municipalities, according to Businesstech.
In a presentation on the Division of Revenue Bill to parliament this week, Cosatu, one of the members of the governing tripartite alliance, slammed the government for being silent on these failures and the impact on the local job market.
‘The most alarming part of the Division of Revenue Bill is that it is absolutely silent on the chaos and rampant financial mismanagement, collapse in good governance, and ballooning corruption that has come to characterise the public’s experiences with local government.’
‘In 2013, 86 out of the 259 municipalities were in financial problems. In 2019, it had risen to 175. In 2022, according to the Auditor-General, it has risen to 90%. Yet the Bill and Budget are silent on what is the government’s plan to fix this crisis.’
Municipal workers are being sent home unpaid. Roads, water, sanitation, and electricity are deteriorating at an alarming pace, and companies are closing, retrenching, and abandoning entire rural towns, according to the presentation.
‘Less than a year after the 2021 local elections, Mangaung Municipality is on the verge of being put under administration.’
The Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation (DPME) has also flagged the deterioratingstate of South Africa’s municipalities, stating that poor delivery of basic services and crumbling infrastructure at a local level are key hurdles to job creation efforts.
Referring to the recent water crisis in the Lekwa Municipality in Mpumalanga, it said poultry farming was badly affected and the crisis had increased production costs for the region’s biggest job creator, Astral Foods.
Poor administration and crumbling infrastructure has led to Clover closing the country’s largest cheese factory in Lichtenburg in the North West.
[Photo: Keith Garnet Millar]