OPINION | Municipalities have a money problem – but that alone won’t fix the crisis

• Municipalities are owed nearly R500 billion, yet many can’t collect what they’re due, pay suppliers on time or spend infrastructure funding already allocated to them.

• In this hard-hitting opinion piece, Jonathan Erasmus argues that South Africa’s local government crisis is about far more than a shortage of money.

• The numbers tell a worrying story of weak financial management, mounting debt and a system edging closer to collapse.

By Jonathan Erasmus

South Africa’s municipalities have a money problem, but perhaps not the one we normally talk about.

Yes, enormous amounts of money are needed to repair ageing water networks, electricity infrastructure, roads, wastewater treatment works and other municipal infrastructure.

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One only needs to drive through Johannesburg, Tshwane, eThekwini and just about any municipality countrywide to come to this conclusion.

But National Treasury’s latest figures reveal a more fundamental problem.

Many municipalities