The Portfolio Committee on Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA) has expressed cautious optimism about the department’s efforts to improve distressed municipalities.
This comes after COGTA officials, including Minister Velenkosini Hlabisa and Deputy Ministers Namane Masemola and Prince Burns-Ncamashe, updated the Parliamentary Committee on their initiatives on Tuesday in Cape Town.
These included implementing a Municipal Performance Turnaround Strategy for distressed municipalities and introducing policy and legislative measures to strengthen local government.
The committee welcomed COGTA’s plans to address governance, financial management, and infrastructure issues in municipalities.
In its presentation, COGTA outlined the challenges, especially in the top 10 distressed municipalities, in terms of funded and unfunded budgets, debt owed to water boards and Eskom and subsequent service delivery problems.
The committee heard that the Department, through its entity, the Municipal Infrastructure Support Agent (MISA), has invoked Schedule 6B of the Division of Revenue Act to enhance the effectiveness of
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