Failure to spend municipal infrastructure grants is unpardonable
31 May 2016
The Inkatha Freedom Party considers it unpardonable that many municipalities have failed to spend their infrastructure grants over the past five years as reported by Parliament’s Select Committee on Appropriations.
“It is unacceptable that councils have huge amounts of money allocated to improve infrastructure within their municipalities but fail to do so. Municipalities in KwaZulu-Natal have failed to spend R210million that was in the budget for the past five years. This smacks of bad planning and a lack of vision. In many municipalities people are protesting due to a lack of service delivery and the inhumane conditions under which they are forced to live. “It is, therefore difficult to understand why municipalities will fail to spend the money that they have to improve the lives of their citizens. We are talking about tax payer’s money that is meant to benefit the people but it remains unspent due to incompetence. Underspending of budgets must be frowned upon especially when our people are crying out for better services,” said Mr Hlengwa MP, IFP National Spokesperson on Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs.
“Parliament’s Select Committee on Appropriations needs to investigate why municipalities are failing to use their budgets for the projects that they were intended. It needs to make councillors and administrators accountable for such failure and even go so far as to impose punitive measures on those responsible. Those who are employed by municipalities and those who have been voted to serve as councillors have a responsibility to serve their citizens to the best of their abilities. We need people who are knowledgeable and experienced in municipal infrastructure planning and implementation. Service delivery protests can become a thing of the past if municipal budgets are used to improve living conditions of citizens”, concluded Mr Mkhuleko Hlengwa
Issued by Mkhulelo Hlengwa, IFP National Spokesperson on Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, 31 May 2061
