‘It is a gangster’s paradise’: Cogta minister Nkadimeng describes 'unfunded budget' municipalities

Residents are forced to live with sewers bubbling in the open, water shortages, roads riddled with potholes, yet municipal budgets are full of “community engagement imbizos”.

These were the sentiments of minister of co-operative governance and traditional affairs (Cogta) Thembi Nkadimeng speaking about the state of municipalities at the district development model (DDM) conference at Stellenbosch University this week. 

Nkadimeng said there were about 168 municipalities with unfunded budgets. She found the budgets had “community engagements” but did not prioritise basic service delivery needs. 

An unfunded budget means a municipality makes financial commitments for projects but does not have the money, leading to spiralling debt.

According to the 2020/21 AG report, 47% of municipalities continued to spend money they did not have and incurred a deficit of R6.63bn owed to creditors.

“What is even worse about these unfunded budgets is that nothing translates to [the improvement] of roads, better water provision, nothing translates to what you think is tangible and is needed by community members. 

“There are sewers in the street boiling and there are no roads,” Nkadimeng told municipality officials, urging them to do better.

The minister blamed municipal councils for approving these budgets.

She said a certain percentage of councillors needed an education after a Cogta report found some councillors in KZN could not read or write.

Nkadimeng decried corruption in municipalities, saying it thrived because officials were not reporting fraud.

“How do we incorporate law enforcement into DDM? Because unless you are not living where I am living and staying in the municipalities where you are working, it’s a gangster’s paradise. 

“We have been taken over, and if we do not accept it we have more problems coming our side. How many of us in this room stand up in our municipalities and say this is wrong? We don’t. Maybe it’s out of fear, I am not judgmental,” she said.

Nkadimeng said despite the financial management framework developed by the National Treasury, mismanagement of funds continued in local government. 

One of the recent cases of corruption scandals in municipalities was that of the former municipal manager of Nama Khoi municipality in the Northern Cape, Nevie Aubrey Baartman, 63.

Baartman was found guilty last month of contravention of Municipal Finance Management Act.

Hawks spokesperson Capt Tebogo Thebe said Baartman was charged in 2021 for fraud in a R79m tender awarded to a construction company in 2013. 

“The former municipal manager was accused of awarding a tender for supplying paver bricks and kerbs worth R79,966,559 without following correct tender procedures,” Thebe said. 

Baartman, who is an EFF member, is set to be sentenced by the Springbok magistrate’s court in September.