The Democratic Alliance (DA) in Mpumalanga calls on the MEC of CoGTA, Busisiwe Shiba, to normalise monitoring and oversight into projects built in municipalities to avoid backlogs and abandoned uncompleted projects.
Over the past couple of years, some local municipalities in the province like Govan Mbeki, Bushbuckridge and Msukaligwa have either faced infrastructure backlogs or projects were completely abandoned. Sometimes they fail to spend their Conditional Infrastructure Grant. The situation is even made worse by the fact that there is lack of monitoring and oversight from provincial authorities.
In the 2019/2020 audit of Govan Mbeki Local Municipality, the Auditor–General (AG) noted that the municipality began the construction of a new wastewater treatment plant in Charl Cilliers on the 17th of October 2019, and that this project had a completion date of 30 June 2020. The project, which was valued at R15.85 million, was still incomplete on the envisaged date and as such the completion date was extended to November 2020.
The AG noted further that a progress report dated 30 October 2020 indicated that only 35% of the work amounting to R6,41 million had been done. The DA finds it extremely concerning that the project still hasn’t been completed by December 2020 when an oversight was conducted by the AG. Equally concerning is the fact that the Integrated Development Plan (IDP) for the 2021/2022 financial year noted that the residents in Charl Cilliers still had no bulk water and sewer.
Recently, both Bushbuckridge and Msukaligwa local municipalities failed to utilise the bulk of conditional grants which they received: with Bushbuckridge not utilising 65% of the Water Services Infrastructure Grant and Msukaligwa not utilising 95% of the Regional Bulk Infrastructure Grant. Instances like these are extremely concerning in a province with huge infrastructure backlogs because it robs deserving residents of much needed service delivery.
The DA will write to MEC Shiba and request that she maintains oversight in municipalities which are either struggling to utilise conditional grants in the required time frame, and to maintain oversight into municipalities which are failing to roll out infrastructure projects in the envisaged time frame.