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KwaZulu-Natal Finance MEC Francois Rodgers, who described himself as a straight talker when it comes to money matters, has blamed the national government\u2019s \u201cbad policy decisions\u201d for the suffering of the municipalities and key provincial government departments. <\/span><\/p>\n 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. <\/span><\/p>\n The CMS is expected to help the municipalities <\/span>monitor and control the movement of money in and out of their fiscal system.<\/span><\/p>\n 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.<\/span><\/p>\n He said the Government of Provincial Unity (GPU) inherited a process of budgeting that would \u201cnever get us out of trouble.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n He said the province was facing a huge crisis in the education, health and social development, and transport departments.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cLots 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. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe now have R5.7 trillion debt and we have to pay R1.2 billion interest on that debt,\u201d said Rodgers. <\/span><\/p>\n He said bad policy decisions led to the government failing to save money, <\/span>but instead, inequitable shares had to be cut by R70 billion over four years<\/span>. <\/span><\/p>\n He addressed the municipalities a few hours after the provincial cabinet and Premier Thami Ntuli held a meeting about the state of local governments. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cOne 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,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n Rodgers said when it came to money matters, he makes sure that \u201cthere has to be straight talk\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThere 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.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cBut 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,\u201d said the DA provincial leader. <\/span><\/p>\n He said only political will would help the municipalities to transform their pattern of expenditure and patterns of poor fiscal control. <\/span><\/p>\n He said the municipalities should not pin their hopes on the National Treasury to solve their financial problems.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe National Treasurer is not going to rescue you, but we’re gonna have to rescue you ourselves,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" KwaZulu-Natal Finance MEC Francois Rodgers, who described himself as a straight talker when it comes to money matters, has blamed the national government\u2019s \u201cbad policy decisions\u201d 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[7048,7078,5849,3963,427,11128,4889,1008,1546,1583],"class_list":{"0":"post-242366","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-politics","7":"tag-decisions","8":"tag-finance","9":"tag-highlights","10":"tag-kzn","11":"tag-mec","12":"tag-municipalities","13":"tag-national","14":"tag-paying","15":"tag-poor","16":"tag-price"},"yoast_head":"\n