Budgeting and Financing EFF People’s Municipalities

e) Budgeting And Financing For The Effective Management Of People’s Municipalities.

Local government faces a crisis due to mismanagement and financial waste in municipalities led by the ANC, DA, and IFP, undermining proper service delivery. There is a need for a new approach to budgeting and financing, strengthening administrative capacity, and ensuring leaders prioritise communities.

Municipalities currently receive about 9% of the funds allocated by parliament to the national and provincial governments. The EFF will continue to advocate in Parliament for the increase of this allocation to at least 15%, which would free up more resources for essential services like roads, water, electricity, and housing.

EFF People’s Municipalities will establish Infrastructure Grant Technical Oversight     Units. These units will have dedicated engineers, architects, town planners, artisans, and financial analysts working full-time      to ensure that infrastructure grant funds, often lost due to poor coordination and corruption, are used correctly.

EFF People’s Municipalities will also partner with businesses to help build roads, water systems, electricity, housing and digital infrastructure, while keeping these assets in the hands and ownership of the people.

EFF People’s Municipalities will establish agreements with local businesses to support infrastructure maintenance, including repairing pavements and potholes, placing refuse bins on their premises, and cleaning public spaces. They will also allocate funds to taxi associations for cleaning and maintaining taxi ranks, transport corridors, and public toilets. Additionally, EFF People’s Municipalities will collect      monies      owed to them by large businesses and government departments.

Billions of rands are lost annually through water and electricity wastage caused by poorly maintained infrastructure. The EFF People’s Municipalities plan to repair infrastructure and install smart meters to safeguard municipal revenue.

According to the Auditor-General of South Africa, municipalities spent more than R1.6 billion on consultants during the 2024/25 financial year. The EFF People’s Municipalities will prioritise building internal capacity by employing suitably qualified professionals instead of relying on consultants, ensuring that public funds are used more efficiently.

Many business people struggle to build factories because they don’t have access to land. The EFF People’s Municipalities will provide free land to business owners for building factories and creating jobs, aiming to boost municipal revenue.