The Democratic Alliance (DA) in Ba-Phalaborwa rejects the Ba-Phalaborwa local and Mopani district draft municipal budgets for 2026/27 because they fail to provide relief or a credible recovery plan for Phalaborwa’s infrastructure and service-delivery catastrophe.
Both budgets fail to meet the requirements of section 153 of the Constitution, which obliges municipalities to structure and manage their budgeting and planning processes to prioritise the basic needs of communities and promote social and economic development.
Ba-Phalaborwa’s own draft budget provides for a deficit and is therefore “unfunded”. An unfunded budget is not credible, not sustainable, and cannot lawfully be adopted as a proper financial plan for the municipality.
Ba-Phalaborwa’s budget also makes no meaningful provision to repair and reconstruct the town’s collapsed road network, while the allocations for the repair and maintenance of the electricity system are simply not enough to address the scale of the crisis.
Mopani District Municipality’s budget fails to provide a credible and ring-fenced recovery plan for the water and sanitation collapse affecting Ba-Phalaborwa. As the Water Services Authority, Mopani cannot budget only for selected plants, schemes or bulk infrastructure while failing to clearly fund the reticulation systems, sewer networks, pumps, pipes, and local infrastructure that residents rely on daily.
Phalaborwa is in crisis. Years of reckless ANC governance, neglect, and failure to maintain infrastructure left the town’s electricity network, water and sanitation systems, roads, and stormwater infrastructure decrepit before the January floods. The floods then worsened an already collapsing system.
Four months have passed since the January 2026 floods. Yet both Ba-Phalaborwa Municipality and Mopani District Municipality have still not presented a clear plan to stabilise service delivery, repair and reconstruct collapsed infrastructure, or address the systemic failures that caused the crisis.
The draft budgets do not respond to the hardship faced by residents. They make no meaningful effort to address the dire situation and appear to have been drafted as though it is business as usual. The community’s frustration culminated in a walkout from the combined IDP/Budget consultation meeting.
Residents are being asked to pay more in tariffs and rates while both municipalities fail to show how they will stabilise basic services, repair collapsed infrastructure, and recover from the floods.
The DA will continue to fight for Phalaborwa residents and will demand revised budgets, ring-fenced recovery plans, and clear implementation timelines.
Ethical governance means putting the community first — not presenting residents with budgets that ignore the scale of the crisis.
In the November local government elections, Phalaborwa residents will have the opportunity to remove those who have presided over this collapse and vote for ethical and responsible governance under the DA.