The Democratic Alliance (DA) in Limpopo will write to the MEC for Limpopo Provincial Treasury, calling on the Department to actively monitor that municipalities across Limpopo adopt funded and lawful budgets for the 2026/27 financial year, and to ensure that corrective action is taken where this does not happen.
Adopting an unfunded budget is unlawful and irresponsible. The Constitution requires municipalities to structure their budgeting and planning processes to prioritise basic needs and promote sustainable development. This is reinforced by section 18 of the Municipal Finance Management Act, which requires that municipal budgets be funded from realistically anticipated revenue.
Multiple municipalities in Limpopo under the leadership of the ANC, across consecutive financial years, continue to adopt unfunded budgets without taking the corrective action required by law.
Provincial Treasury, in its own assessment, found that for the 2024/25 and 2025/26 financial years, the Mopani, Vhembe, and Waterberg District Municipalities, as well as the Greater Letaba, Ba-Phalaborwa, Musina, Thabazimbi, Mogalakwena, and Modimolle-Mookgophong Local Municipalities, adopted unfunded budgets and did not take corrective action.
Provincial Treasury’s report paints a disturbing picture, and highlights a pattern of municipalities adopting unfunded, non-credible budgets alongside rising irregular and unauthorised expenditure, ineffective internal controls, delays in investigations, weak consequence management, and a failure to act on audit findings.
The continued adoption of unfunded budgets, without meaningful correction, demonstrates a breakdown not only at municipal level, but in the enforcement of financial governance by those with the power to act.
Provincial Treasury is not a passive reporting body — it is an enforcement authority. It is required to monitor, assess and enforce compliance with the law, and to act decisively where municipalities adopt unlawful budgets. Failure to do so allows unlawful budgets to stand and entrenches a cycle of financial mismanagement and service delivery failure.
Oversight without enforcement is not compliance — it is failure.
Limpopo residents deserve budgets that are credible, lawful, and capable of delivering real services. As the Democratic Alliance, we demand nothing less.