- Eleven Limpopo municipalities adopted unfunded adjustment budgets, while nine tabled unfunded budgets for 2026/27.
- Limpopo was the worst-performing province in National Treasury’s latest municipal compliance assessment.
- The DA will demand a municipality-by-municipality financial recovery plan, firm deadlines and consequences for continued failure.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) will call for an urgent joint sitting of the Limpopo Legislature’s Portfolio Committees on Provincial Treasury and COGHSTA to demand accountability and a municipality-by-municipality financial recovery plan. This follows Limpopo Provincial Treasury’s latest State of Municipal Finance report, which lays bare the collapse of financial control in Limpopo municipalities and the threat to their financial viability.
Treasury’s report shows that the province’s municipal financial governance is in deep distress, with unfunded budgets, weak revenue collection, failing financial controls and heavy dependence on consultants.
The scale of the failure is clear:
- 11 of Limpopo’s 27 municipalities (41%) adopted unfunded adjustment budgets for 2025/26;
- 9 municipalities (33%) tabled unfunded budgets for 2026/27;
- 22 municipalities (81%) rely on consultants to compile their asset registers;
- 17 (63%) rely on consultants to review their annual financial statements;
- weak revenue collection is leaving municipalities unable to pay creditors and maintain infrastructure; and
- consequence management remains weak, despite repeated findings by the Auditor-General.
Limpopo was also the worst-performing province in National Treasury’s 2024/25 municipal compliance assessment. Equitable share transfers to five municipalities have since been temporarily withheld because of persistent financial non-compliance.
When municipalities cannot manage public money, roads go unrepaired, electricity infrastructure deteriorates, refuse collection becomes unreliable and essential maintenance is delayed. Businesses lose confidence, investment declines and residents are forced to live with the consequences of financial decisions they did not make.
The ANC-led provincial government cannot claim that it did not know about the crisis or lacked the power to act. For years, municipalities have been instructed to adopt funded budgets, improve revenue collection, reduce unauthorised and wasteful spending, strengthen financial controls and hold officials accountable.
Yet the same failures continue.
The Auditor-General has repeatedly warned that municipal councils and provincial authorities are failing to fulfil their legal duties. Provincial and national interventions have been too slow, too weak and have achieved too little.
The problem is not a lack of reports, recommendations or legal powers. It is a lack of implementation, accountability and political will by the ANC-led provincial government.
They must explain why section 139(5) interventions were not implemented where persistent financial crises triggered the constitutional requirements for intervention.
Limpopo has had enough reports identifying the same failures. Residents deserve municipalities that fix potholes, keep water flowing, maintain electricity infrastructure, collect refuse on time and spend public money responsibly — and a provincial government that acts decisively when municipalities fail.