Municipalities in Gauteng are showing improvement in terms of their commitment and leadership in addressing issues that have been identified as risks, specifically financial and revenue management matters.
“We are encouraged by this trend which is yielding positive results in certain areas including the internal control environment,” Gauteng Finance MEC Mandla Nkomfe says. He was speaking following the quarterly Municipal Finance Indaba (MFI) hosted jointly by the Gauteng Provincial Treasury and the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs in Johannesburg yesterday.
“Through the quarterly MFI forums, we conduct vigorous bilateral engagements with municipalities in Gauteng led by various Members of the Mayoral Committees for Finance, to ensure coordination and continued support with regards to allocation and utilisation of resources, and own revenue collection,” MEC Nkomfe says.
In an effort to capacitate municipalities, the Gauteng Provincial Treasury is implementing various strategies including monitoring recruitment and retention of critical skills; facilitate the implementation of Human Resource Development and Management Strategy as well as monitoring and support of Performance Management Systems.
“We need to capacitate the workforce of our municipalities to ensure that officials at all levels do what they are employed to do,” MEC Nkomfe continued.
During the last Indaba for the current quarter, an overview of the financial performance and cash flow were presented.
Working to enhance revenue management
In order to address revenue collection challenges, Treasury has intervened to extend support to municipalities experiencing problems with the revenue value chain and this entail:
- Data analysis
- Customer profiling
- Cash enhancement
- Data cleansing
- Reducing bad debts
In this regard Treasury is working on establishing a Revenue Forum as a platform to bring municipal revenue practitioners to look at revenue challenges, innovation and best practices in the industry i.e. public and private sector to enhance revenue
“In addition the Debt Management Committee (DMC) established by the provincial government in 2009 continues to receive great support from both municipalities and provincial departments as a key platform to resolving outstanding government debt owed to municipalities for rates, taxes and services charges. To date, more than R2 billion has been transferred to municipalities from various departments within the province,” Nkomfe says.
Through the DMC, the province has acquired a wealth of knowledge of the local government sphere which will provide the basis to unlock possible blockages in the intergovernmental transfer system. Work has started in terms of extending the scope of this Committee to interface with stakeholders such as national departments and parastatals that have property located in our municipalities.
Treasury is executing its oversight role to municipalities as mandated by the Municipal Finance Management Act and commits to continue to support and monitor the progress on municipal spending against the projections and objectives during the financial year.
Enquiries:
John Sukazi
MEC Spokesperson
Cell: 083 772 4885
Email: john.sukazi@gauteng.gov.za
