This after the municipality,  which includes Welkom, recently sent a letter to its employees and councillors stating that they would only be paid on Friday, 28 June and not on the usual date, due to the financial difficulties. Cogta says municipalities are expected to pay workers what is due to them and says they will make sure that this happens.

In light of the Auditor General South Africa (AGSA) Kimi Makwetu's report, the department says it noted with deep concern the performance of municipalities in the province and have undertaken to improve and change the situation.

On Wednesday, Makwetu revealed that irregular expenditure nationwide is down from R29.7 billion in 2016/17 to R25.2 billion in 2017/18. He further revealed that clean audits are down from 14% in 2016/17 to 8% in 2017/18 with only 18 of 257 municipalities having achieved clean audits consistently.

"As the department, we are responsible to provide support to municipalities in our province and we are committed to continue supporting municipalities to meet their objectives, as set out in Chapter 7 of the Constitution" the department says in a statement.

The department says it has engaged with all municipalities in the province and the understanding is that all of them will be able to meet their obligations to workers. "We have engaged with provincial departments and asked them to honour their outstanding accounts to municipalities."

The department further says it remain committed to clean, transparent and accountable governance and it will do its best to implement the recommendations of the AG. "We realise that municipalities also have an obligation to provide services to our people in a sustainable manner, and Cogta is committed to hold municipalities to their constitutional mandate," the department concluded.

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