MIDDELBURG – Nkangala District Mayor Thomas Ngwenya has blamed non-payment by government departments and households for the financial distress facing municipalities, calling on the National Treasury to take action against departments that fail to settle their municipal accounts.
His comments follow Treasury’s temporary withholding of July 2026 equitable share transfers to 69 municipalities nationwide, including Victor Khanye, eMakhazeni and Nkomazi in Mpumalanga, over persistent non-compliance with the Municipal Finance Management Act.
Speaking to Highveld Chronicle, Ngwenya said the financial problems facing municipalities could not be attributed solely to poor municipal management.
“There are some government departments that owe municipalities. There are also households, the majority of which owe municipalities. That is where the problem of municipalities lies. So people must start paying for their services. Anyone who uses the system must pay. That is the drive we need,” Ngwenya said.
He acknowledged that the National Treasury had cited several reasons for withholding the funds, including municipal debt to water boards, unauthorised, irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure, and poor audit outcomes.
However, Ngwenya argued that non-payment for municipal services remained the underlying problem.
“The root cause is the non-payment for services by both communities and government departments,” he said.
Ngwenya welcomed the intervention by Mpumalanga Premier Mandla Ndlovu to put pressure on provincial departments to settle outstanding municipal accounts.
“We are happy that the Honourable Premier is now putting pressure on various departments in the province to pay. We are beginning to see some of the departments now beginning to pay because the Premier has stepped in,” he said.
The Mayor said the National Treasury should apply similar measures to national departments that owe municipalities.
“We want the National Treasury to do the same as it has done today to the municipalities: withhold the equitable share of those departments that owe municipalities as well. It cannot be one-sided. We need to make sure that the National Treasury also acts,” Ngwenya said.
He said the financial challenges facing municipalities were systemic and required a broader review of the way local government is funded.
“This is a structural and systemic problem. If we are to address it, we must address it through the National Treasury, through a White Paper, in terms of reviewing the model of funding for local government,” he said.
The July equitable share funds were released after 31 days. National Treasury said the withholding was a corrective measure intended to promote fiscal discipline, with transfers to resume once the affected municipalities met the required conditions.
