Municipal review: 28 February 2025

Welcome to the first weekly newsletter where we focus on important developments in local government, with an emphasis on the events in South Africa’s metropolitan municipalities and the health of various inter-party relationships and coalitions.

In this week’s post, we look at the poor financial health of the metros as reflected in the latest reports from the Auditor-General’s office. We also shine a light on the struggling relationships between the Democratic Alliance (DA) and Freedom Front Plus (FF+) in the Western Cape, and the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) and Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) in KwaZulu-Natal.

The Auditor-General and the 2023/24 municipal audits

Financial management at local government level has reached such a nadir that Auditor-General (A-G) Tsakani Maluleke appealed to the National Assembly Speaker for help on Monday.

Maluleke might have approached Speaker Thoko Didiza as a last resort. Her annual appeals, and those of her predecessors, for municipalities to do better have been ignored. By the end of November 2024 - five months after the 2023/24 fiscal year concluded - there were over 50 municipalities whose audits were incomplete.

There were nine municipalities with outstanding audits by 31 January 2025. Six are in the Free State, suggesting that the mismanagement and rot extends to provincial oversight, or lack thereof. The A-G’s full report is still months away but individual municipalities are discussing their audits in council, with varying degrees of transparency.

The news from South Africa’s largest municipalities is not encouraging. Audit outcomes stagnated for Johannesburg, Ekurhuleni, and Tshwane, and it is of particular concern that Tshwane obtained a qualified audit for the second year in a row. eThekwini’s unqualified audit contained material findings and irregularities while Nelson Mandela Bay regressed to a qualified audit.

Buffalo City tried to keep its audit result a secret as it regressed to a qualified audit with material findings while Mangaung faces a ‘financial crisis’, according to the A-G. Cape Town was the only metropolitan municipality to get a clean audit.

A municipality’s overall audit result and its change from the previous year tells a small part of the story. An unqualified audit covers a wide range of financial performance and can also hide a multitude of sins: there is a world of difference between Cape Town’s financial health and the health of Johannesburg, Ekurhuleni and eThekwini.

In a Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA) meeting last month, the A-G questioned the financial viability of Johannesburg and Tshwane based on the previous year’s audit outcomes. The DA and ActionSA in eThekwini slammed the ANC-led council for the report’s contents.

The criticisms and concerns are the same in almost every metro: poor revenue collection, poor project management, and inadequate maintenance of infrastructure. These failures have led to increased service delivery failures, underspending of capital grants, and burgeoning creditors’ and debtors’ books.

Swellendam

Relations between the DA and FF+ have been tenuous for almost a year over the FF+’s perceived betrayals and the DA’s heavy-handed approach to coalitions in a number of Western Cape municipalities. The DA has accused the FF+ of working with the African National Congress (ANC) to unseat the party across the province. The battle over control of the Swellendam council is the latest in a series of fallouts between the two parties.

The DA won a majority of council seats in Swellendam in the 2021 local government election but lost a ward seat to the ANC in a very close March 2023 by-election, leaving both the DA and ANC on five seats. The FF+’s single council seat made the party the kingmaker in the municipality, and the party went into coalition with the DA with the FF+ councillor, Juan van Schalkwyk elected as council speaker.

The two parties regarded each other with mutual suspicion from the beginning of the coalition which only increased when van Schalkwyk voted with the ANC to elect an ANC councillor as chairperson of the Municipal Public Accounts Committee (MPAC).

The cracks widened in 2024 when other DA-FF+ coalitions collapsed across Western Cape municipalities. In May, the FF+ voted with the ANC to remove Cape Aghulas mayor Paul Swart. The FF+ voted out another DA mayor in August, joining an ANC-led coalition in Oudtshoorn. The party also refused to support the DA’s coalition budget in Langeberg.

Things came to a head in Swellendam last month when DA mayor Francois du Rand was removed from office in a motion of no confidence that van Schalkwyk supported. van Schalkwyk faced internal party scrutiny for voting with the ANC, with party leader Pieter Groenewald stating that his actions were not sanctioned and would be investigated. van Schalkwyk subsequently tendered his resignation from the party and resigned as speaker. du Rand was re-elected as mayor and new FF+ councillor, Jasper du Toit Laubsher was elected as the new speaker.

uMhlathuze

uMhlazthuze is one of many KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) municipalities where neither the ANC nor the IFP was able to win a majority of council seats in the 2021 election. Although the ANC won a plurality of seats in 2021, the IFP was able to lead a coalition that included the DA and EFF. Recent events in the muicipality have driven a wedge between the IFP and EFF, potentially threatening the stability of a number of KZN municipalities.

The problems started in early 2023 after the EFF decided to work with the ANC across KZN and Gauteng municipalities, leading to a series of fallouts between the EFF and IFP. However, the animosity between the two parties has led to violence and legal battles in uMhlathuse.

In January, members of the EFF protested at the municipality, demanding the replacement of three councillors who were expelled from their party in November 2024 after failing to procure buses for buses for the EFF’s 10th anniversary bash in July. The three councillors remained in office with the municipality continuing to pay their salaries, leading to the EFF accusing the municipality of retaining them to maintain a majority in the council.

The city opened a criminal case against the EFF members who staged a protest, led by EFF provincial secretary Nkululeko Ngubane and chairperson Mongezi Thwala. According to the mayor, Xolani Ngwezi, the protesters violently broke entry glass doors and proceeded to assault security personnel and vandalise municipal property. The EFF celebrated a Durban High Court ruling dismissing with costs the uMhlathuze municipality's attempt to prevent the party from protesting at council meetings.