According to the Democratic Alliance’s Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) spokesperson in the Free State Legislature, Leona Kleynhans, the Treasury has issued a final warning to the municipality to comply with legal requirements to rectify its unfunded budget. 

Kleynhans states that the municipality relies on this payment because it is collecting minimal revenue from consumers. "The equitable share grant will only be withheld if they do not comply."

The equitable share grant is an unconditional allocation, meaning that provincial and local governments determine the priorities for these funds and are directly accountable for how they are spent.

"Last week, the municipality issued a notice to staff and councillors that salaries would not be paid due to cash flow problems. Staff then downed tools and a water crisis followed due to no water being pumped at the four big water treatment plants. Tankers could also not be deployed to serve the 380 000 residents, as the tankers could also not access water," says Kleynhans.

After the notice was sent, some staff have been paid their salaries, but contract workers, managers and councillors have not yet been paid. Pumping at most water treatment plants has resumed, and it is expected that within a few days the water situation will be back to normal. Kleynhans explains that they have warned the municipality about the adoption of the unfunded budget in June, saying that the municipality would run out of money.

In terms of the law, the council should have also adopted a Budget Funding Plan to indicate how it would ensure funding, but this was not done.

The Eskom agreement ordered by the Gauteng High Court in June last year, and finally approved by council in September this year, has still not been concluded and implemented. 

In October 2021, the Minister of Finance ordered that the Maluti-a-Phofung municipality be placed under Section 139 (7) National Intervention due to its extremely dire financial situation and lack of proper governance. The Free State provincial Exco has failed to do this.

ALSO READ: Free State Cosatu slams Maluti-a-Phofung

OFM News previously reported that the Congress of the South African Trade Unions' (Cosatu) spokesperson in the province, Monyatso Oa Mahlatsi, said residents of this Eastern Free State municipality had recently been subjected to a persistent electricity and water crisis.

He says residents in the area have suffered immensely during the recent period. According to Mahlatsi, they can no longer turn a blind eye while people continue to suffer.

As a result, the federation has since planned a protest march in QwaQwa to highlight the plight of the workers and the community at large. 

The municipality had recently failed to pay its workers, but it’s now understood that it has since made payments. However, a source in the upper echelons suggests that things look bleak for December in terms of salaries.

OFM News