COGTA’S R2 BILLION BUDGET MUST TRANSLATE INTO BETTER SERVICES
COGTA’S R2 BILLION BUDGET MUST TRANSLATE INTO BETTER SERVICES
BY MARLAINE NAIR
Provincial budgets are often presented through large figures and technical language. For most people, the real question is simpler: what difference will this money make in daily life?
KwaZulu-Natal’s Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA), supports and monitors municipalities, coordinates disaster management and supports traditional leadership institutions. Its work should be felt when residents open a tap, report a service-delivery problem or need help after a flood, fire or storm.
For the 2026/27 financial year, CoGTA has been allocated about R2.033 billion. This is an increase of roughly R102 million, or 5.29%, on the previous main budget. Most of the increase is linked to inflation, so it does not mean there is a large amount of new money for projects.
There are several positive commitments in the budget and Annual Performance Plan (APP). The appointment of a permanent Head of Department after a lengthy period of acting arrangements should provide greater administrative stability, clearer responsibility and stronger accountability. The department has also committed to supporting all 54 municipalities with the implementation and monitoring of their Service Delivery and Budget Implementation Plans, commonly known as SDBIPs.
An SDBIP translates a municipal budget into specific services, projects, deadlines and performance targets. Support must therefore go beyond meetings and workshops. It must help municipalities implement their plans and correct problems before they become crises.
The focus on improving conditional-grant expenditure is also welcome. Municipalities cannot continue returning unspent infrastructure funding while communities wait for water, roads, sanitation and other basic services.
Better planning, procurement and project management will be essential if grant funding is to produce completed projects rather than delays, extensions and rollovers.
The continued implementation of the Provincial Water Master Plan is another important commitment. Water remains one of the most serious challenges facing communities across KwaZulu-Natal.
A master plan, however, will only have value if it identifies priority projects, responsible authorities, funding sources and firm completion dates. Residents do not experience a water plan on paper. They experience whether water comes from their taps.
The department has also placed greater emphasis on disaster preparedness. KwaZulu-Natal remains vulnerable to floods, fires, storms and other disasters that can destroy homes, infrastructure and livelihoods.
Disaster management cannot begin only after an emergency has occurred. Municipal disaster-management centres must be functional, early-warning systems must reach communities, and emergency resources must be ready to respond.
At the same time, the budget contains significant pressures.
Approximately 45% of the allocation goes towards departmental employees. A further 26% relates to the remuneration of Izinduna, Amakhosi and Traditional Council Secretaries. Together, these commitments account for about 71% of the total budget. This leaves approximately 29% for operations, municipal support, infrastructure interventions, disaster management and projects. These personnel and traditional-leadership obligations must be properly funded. The concern is whether sufficient funding remains to carry out the department’s growing programme of work.
The number of departmental performance targets has increased from 100 to 118. More targets may reflect greater ambition, but they must be matched by adequate funding, staff and technical capacity.
The real measure will not be how many targets appear in the APP. It will be how many are achieved and whether they produce visible improvements in governance and service delivery.
We will therefore scrutinize the department’s quarterly expenditure and performance reports. We will compare what was planned, what was spent and what was delivered.
High expenditure does not automatically mean good performance. Public money must produce measurable results.
We will also require the department to identify the municipalities receiving support, the nature of that support, the officials responsible, the deadlines and the improvement expected.
It is not enough to state that a municipality was supported. The important questions are whether financial controls improved, irregular expenditure was reduced, critical vacancies were filled, councils became more stable and services improved.
We also conduct section 132 municipal accountability hearings where municipalities facing serious financial, governance or service-delivery challenges are required to account directly before the Legislature.
These hearings examine audit findings, unauthorized and irregular expenditure, municipal debt, unfunded budgets, weak consequence management and the effect of these failures on residents. Their purpose is not merely to identify problems. It is to establish what went wrong, who is responsible, what corrective action is required and when that action must be completed.
We will also continue following up on section 106 investigations into allegations of maladministration, fraud and corruption.
An investigation cannot end with a report that remains unresolved. Where wrongdoing is established, consequence management must follow. Where the difficulty is a shortage of skills or capacity, practical support and clear deadlines are required.
Other issues requiring close attention include the payment of suppliers within 30 days, the management of unauthorized, irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure, municipal financial distress, infrastructure delivery and the effectiveness of provincial interventions.
Oversight is not complete when a problem is identified. It is complete only when corrective action is implemented and the same failure does not continue to appear quarter after quarter.
Ultimately, the success of this R2.033 billion budget will not be decided by the number of documents produced or meetings held. It will be decided by whether municipalities become more stable, public money is protected, communities are protected during disasters and residents receive the services they are entitled to. That is the standard against which we will measure the department throughout the financial year.
Honourable Nair is the Chairperson of the KwaZulu-Natal Legislature’s Portfolio Committee on Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs
