The DA has demanded that the North West Public Accounts Committee summon all municipalities to account for failures to spend conditional grant funding, reports The Citizen.

This comes after National Treasury moved to stop conditional grants for nine municipalities in the North West because they failed to spend grants meant for infrastructure central to service delivery in communities.

More than R460m earmarked for service delivery, particularly infrastructure, for the 2021-22 financial year, is to be returned to the fiscus because nine municipalities left it unspent despite communities crying for service delivery.

The culprits cited by Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana were Matlosana local municipality, Dr Ruth Segomotsi Mompati district municipality, Rustenburg, Moses Kotane, JB Marks, Madibeng, Ratlou, Ditsobotla and Mamusa.

DA member of the North West legislature Freddy Sonakile criticised the provincial government for losing the funds.

‘North West suffers a massive infrastructure backlog. National Treasury’s decision, although understandable, will put additional strain on the already limited cash flow of municipalities’ he said.

Madibeng alone will lose R145.4m, Dr Ruth Segomotsi Mompati gives up R119.4m and Rustenburg R65.3m while JB Marks and Matlosana will have R59m and R26m respectively returned to the National Treasury.

These municipalities did not perform in line with the objectives and goals set to utilise grants for crucial service delivery programmes.

Full report in The Citizen