By Phuti Raletjena
Bela Bela - The South African Local Government Association (Salga) has warned state entities in Limpopo not to contribute to service delivery delays by failing to pay monies owed to municipalities.
Salga provincial chairman Mogobo Magabe was addressing officials from different government departments and parastatals at a financial week workshop held in Bela Bela on Thursday.
"In the interest of speedy service delivery, let us clear away the things that make it impossible for the money (owed) to be paid over to that particular municipality," said Magabe.
"Nationally, municipalities are being owed R4.2 billion. For us to move out of this situation, mayors must play a vital role to fix financial instabilities... We will only achieve what we want if we work together as a collective. Our people need service delivery and we must improve the current situation in the province."
Magabe further called for municipal public accounts committees to be empowered so they can assist municipalities with oversight.
"Most of the municipalities depend on Municipal Infrastructure Grants (MIG) as they struggle to generate their own revenue by themselves," he said.
MEC for Cooperative Governance, Human Settlement and Traditional Affairs Ishmael Kgetjepe said the challenges facing municipalities were a worrying factor.
"Municipal finance challenges need to be put in the forefront and addressed to ensure that we bring good governance. Our movement to 2014 clean audit is not impressive at all. Even though we have witnessed some improvement in other municipalities others have shown no improvement at all," said MEC Kgetjepe. – SAnews.gov.za
