​Thembisa Shologu
Gauteng municipalities have suffered close to R13 billion in revenue losses owing to COVID-19.
This was revealed by MEC for Urban Planning, Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA), Lebogang Maile while addressing the Legislature on the department's Budget Vote for the current year.
"Whilst municipalities in the province owe R17.6 billion at the last count (a drop of R1.1 billion from the R18.7 billion they owed in December 2020), the converse is that R90 billion is owed by consumers to municipalities in the province, indicating a serious revenue collection problem that goes beyond the unique challenges of COVID-19.
"One of the key findings of the Committee of Inquiry into the state of affairs of local government in Gauteng, that we commissioned in September 2019, was that our municipalities are not sufficiently able to collect revenue and become financially viable, with the current local government financial framework being one of the main problems identified," said MEC Maile.
Gauteng is a water scarce province and one of the lessons that the Gauteng government has   learnt from Cape Town's "Day Zero" challenges was the importance of water security for the City Region.
"In fact, a study by the Gauteng City Region Observatory (GCR) shows that water cuts could become the next barrier to our economic growth and development objectives, just like power cuts and load-shedding, if we don't plan properly and apportion our water resources effectively and efficiently.
"With this in mind, we are working on the development of the Gauteng City Region Water Security Plan and have already had interactions with key stakeholders, including the Minister of Water and Sanitation as regards the plan," he said.
In addition, with the department's experiences and lessons in intervening in Tshwane and Emfuleni using Section 139 of the constitution, the province has contributed to the development and promulgation of the Intergovernmental Monitoring, Support, and Interventions Bill.
"An exciting innovation with regards to improving support and oversight over municipalities. The Bill will allow us to regulate the implementation of, and the processes provided for in section 100 and section 139 of the Constitution; to provide for targeted support to provinces and municipalities in need of assistance amongst other things," said Maile.