Scopa zooms in on 'severely compromised' Msunduzi, Masilonyana municipalities

Parliament's public accounts committee (Scopa) is intensifying its scrutiny of local municipalities to bolster financial accountability and enhance service delivery. The committee is focusing on two municipalities, Msunduzi in KwaZulu-Natal and Masilonyana in the Free State, which face severe operational, governance, and financial crises that hinder their ability to provide essential services.

Both municipalities grapple with revenue collection challenges, mounting debt burdens, and widespread non-compliance with supply chain management regulations, resulting in unauthorized, irregular, and wasteful expenditures. The committee's report highlights the crippling effect of crumbling infrastructure on utility distribution, leading to losses in water and electricity services.

Additionally, both municipalities exhibit significant human resource vulnerabilities, including prolonged leadership vacancies, staff non-compliance with qualification requirements, and inadequate internal consequence management.

Msunduzi's audit outcomes improved in the 2024/25 financial year compared to previous years, but significant issues persist in performance reporting, compliance, financial management, and infrastructure delivery. The municipality spent 88% of its budget for the year but achieved only 57.9% of its basic service delivery targets, falling short of key targets for water mainline bursts, sewer blockages, reservoir construction, grass-cutting services, and refuse removal services.

The municipality's excessive fruitless and wasteful expenditure reached R114.060 million in the 2024/25 financial year, primarily due to interest on late payments, overpayments to officials, and payments to the Royal AM soccer team.

Masilonyana's situation remains dire, characterized by severe administrative dysfunction, poor record-keeping, financial instability, and consistent failure to meet statutory service delivery obligations. The committee noted that these issues were ongoing even during its previous oversight visit in May, which highlighted the same concerns as its August 2022 visit.

Msunduzi's administration was placed under administration in February due to governance failures, financial distress, and inability to fulfill service delivery obligations.