Parliament grills Treasury over R13.5bn municipal funding freeze as 27 councils get money back

Finance minister Enoch Godongwana

Four parliamentary committees scrutinised National Treasury's withholding of R13.5bn in equitable share funding from 69 municipalities on Friday, hearing that 27 councils had their money released on Thursday and 22 more would be paid next week.

The Portfolio Committee on Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta), the Standing Committees on Finance and Appropriations, and the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) met jointly on a virtual platform.

They received briefings from Treasury, the Department of Cooperative Governance, the Financial and Fiscal Commission (FFC) and the SA Local Government Association (Salga).

Treasury announced earlier this month that it was withholding the July equitable share tranche, about R13.5bn of the R110bn allocated to local government this year, from 69 municipalities across all nine provinces over persistent financial mismanagement, unfunded budgets and unpaid debts to Eskom, water boards and other creditors.