Cabinet lekgotla moots crackdown on corrupt, under-performing municipalities

LUCAS LEDWABA

THE cabinet lekgotla has instructed national departments and provinces involved in the District Development Model Plan to submit their projects and budgets by 7 February in what appears to be an effort to speed up implementation of the plan in the wake of growing discontent with service delivery.

The DDM was adopted by cabinet in August last year.

It has been piloted in the OR Tambo, eThekwini and Waterberg district municipalities since August last year with its aims among others being to build government capacity to support municipalities.

Crucially, it also aims to ‘exercise oversight over budgets and projects in an accountable and transparent manner.’

This is deemed a crucial intervention following Auditor General Kimi Makwetu’s report in June which highlighted municipalities’ noncompliance with regulations led to irregular expenditure of R62.6 billion during the 2017/18 financial year.

This was an increase from R51 billion announced by the AG