Mtshweni announces financial rescue for 5 municipalities

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RESCUER: Mpumalanga Premier Refilwe Mtshweni announced the 5 municipalities will be led by finance MEC Eric Kholwane. PICTURE BY Witbank News.

She announced a “financial recovery plan” is being implemented.


Mpumalanga Premier Refilwe Mtshweni has announced that 5 municipalities will be placed under financial rescue.

Mtshweni spoke in Skukuza during her government’s Lekgotla.

She said eMalahleni, Govan Mbeki, Thaba Chweu, Lekwa and Msukaligwa local municipalities have all been placed under a financial rescue plan.

She said as government they area “acutely aware” of the challenges that the Mpumalanga municipalities face.

“As you are aware, we have had to recently intervene in the Emalahleni local municipality in accordance with section 139 of the Municipal Finance Management Act,” she said this week.

“A task team led by provincial treasury and encompassing specialists in every element of the financial management ecosystem has been dispatched to the municipality and are currently working tirelessly to develop and implement a financial recovery plan,” Mtshweni said.

She added this was an effort to ensure that “we collectively address the issues of financial mismanagement” in municipalities as this was affecting service delivery.

She spoke at the Skukuza rest camp during a 3-day provincial government Lekgotla.

Mtshweni told government officials that a Lekgotla was meant to convene officials “in order to ensure that we centrally coordinate the programmes of our government in an effort to ensure that the programmes of the government are concomitant with priority areas aimed at tackling the triple challenges of poverty, unemployment and inequality whilst ensuring that our people continue to have access to the most basic of services”.

“The objective of this Lekgotla is two-fold. The first being that we must ensure that  we continue to align intergovernmental relations with the priority areas outlined above. Secondly, it is important to take cognisance of the fact that we must outline and collate our achievements , as Government, as we approach the end of this 5th democratically elected administration,” the Premier said.

(edited by ZK)

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