KwaZulu-Natal Finance MEC Francois Rodgers, who described himself as a straight talker when it comes to money matters, has blamed the national government’s “bad policy decisions” for the suffering of the municipalities and key provincial government departments.
He was addressing mayors, municipal managers, and chief financial officers of seven municipalities who attended a workshop on the implementation of the Cash Management System (CMS) in Pietermaritzburg on Wednesday.
The CMS is expected to help the municipalities monitor and control the movement of money in and out of their fiscal system.
He said most municipalities were not interested in their financial flow until they ran out of money to deliver services, service debts, and pay salaries.
He said the Government of Provincial Unity (GPU) inherited a process of budgeting that would “never get us out of trouble.”
He said the province was facing a huge crisis in the education, health and social development, and transport departments.
“Lots of what we are facing now is not out of our own making, [but] it is because post-COVID, and by some really bad policy decisions at the national level, like paying R600 million to state-owned entities when that money could have come to our provincial and local governments.
“We now have R5.7 trillion debt and we have to pay R1.2 billion interest on that debt,” said Rodgers.
He said bad policy decisions led to the government failing to save money, but instead, inequitable shares had to be cut by R70 billion over four years.
He addressed the municipalities a few hours after the provincial cabinet and Premier Thami Ntuli held a meeting about the state of local governments.
“One of the issues that the premier made clear is that both Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, and Treasury, need to ensure that we get clean audits in the entire province,” he said.
Rodgers said when it came to money matters, he makes sure that “there has to be straight talk”.
“There is no grey area when it comes to money, and if you are gonna spend money and you put politics ahead of principles, you are gonna make the wrong decisions.
“But if you put principles ahead of politics, and you implement your Municipal Finance Management Act and Public Finance Management Act, and any other legislations, then you are deciding for the right reasons,” said the DA provincial leader.
He said only political will would help the municipalities to transform their pattern of expenditure and patterns of poor fiscal control.
He said the municipalities should not pin their hopes on the National Treasury to solve their financial problems.
“The National Treasurer is not going to rescue you, but we’re gonna have to rescue you ourselves,” he said.
