The challenge local governments face in investing in infrastructure has been starkly highlighted by their below-budget expenditure on capital projects in 2017. According to Treasury figures on local government’s revenue and expenditure for the 2017-2018 financial year, released on Friday, municipal capital expenditure amounted to R58.8bn, or 82.3%, of the adjusted capital budget of R71.4bn. This means R12.6bn (17.7%) was not spent on urgently needed infrastructure such as roads, sanitation, water and schools. SA’s local governments have been bedevilled by service delivery protests and these figures are a clear indictment of the various political parties running these municipalities. Service delivery Metropolitan governments’ underperformance was even worse: they only spent 70.6% (R26.3bn) of their adjusted capital budget of R37.3bn, an underperformance of 29.4%. "Low capital spending has potentially serious implications for the government’s ability to meet the targets for expanded a...
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