Opinion piece – Errol Naidoo
Media reports, “the 2026 Budget Review outlines a “fundamental shift” in how the national government manages failing municipalities, moving from a role of oversight to one of active “structural intervention.” The report exposes then collapse of ANC run municipalities.
During the ANC 2021 Municipal Elections Manifesto launch, President Cyril Ramaphosa promised voters his party will do better at selecting “capable” candidates to ensure service delivery. In fact, he repeats this promise in the run up to the 2026 Municipal Elections.
Despite Ramaphosa’s promises “88 municipalities currently have unfunded budgets, the national government is moving from oversight to direct control of electricity, infrastructure and finances” – because of the complete collapse of governance in ANC run Municipalities.
“Currently, 29 municipalities are under mandatory financial recovery plans. The National Treasury’s invoked section 216(2) of the Constitution against 75 persistently noncompliant municipalities – when constitutionally mandated funds can be stopped.”
Despite the structural and financial collapse of several municipalities in SA bringing hardship and misery to millions of ratepayers, the chronically mismanaged ANC led City of JHB voted themselves a pay rise in the midst of a financial, service delivery & water crisis.
And while entire municipalities crumble as a result of rampant ANC corruption and mismanagement, Ramaphosa offered to mediate an end to the US, Israel and Iran war. The ANC’s destruction of SA cities are matters too trivial for Ramaphosa’s attention.
Eskom issued legal notices to 14 municipalities that failed to pay their electricity accounts for 18 months. This includes the criminally mismanaged Ekurhuleni Municipality that reportedly owes Eskom R3,4 billion despite collecting revenue from consumers.
Instead of ensuring honest, skilled and competent candidates are selected and vetted by political parties, fixing governing failures and guaranteeing service delivery to ratepayers, the national government plans to “intervene” while protecting corrupt and inept councillors.
What this all means is that ratepayers will pay double. Once, to pay the failing municipality and its corrupt and incompetent officials for none delivery, and twice, to pay the various “intervening agencies” national government will appoint to hopefully clean up its mess.
The media report continues, “Government has endorsed ‘Distribution Agency Agreements’ (DAAs). These agreements empower Eskom to take over electricity distribution on behalf of defaulting municipalities to ensure revenue is collected, current accounts are paid and service reliability is restored.”
“To address the delivery crisis, infrastructure projects funded by conditional grants will be delivered by “implementing agents” such as the Development Bank of Southern Africa, or the relevant district municipality where capacity exists.”
“To protect infrastructure investment from municipal dysfunction,” (mismanagement, fraud, and theft) a general clause will be introduced in the “2026 Division of Revenue Bill.”
“It enables the National Treasury to redirect infrastructure grants from local municipalities that have proven incapable of implementation to the “Development Bank of Southern Africa,” the “Municipal Infrastructure Support Agent” or capable district municipalities.”
What this outrageous report reveals is that national government admits failure. It admits it cannot and will not fix the massive governance failures caused by corrupt and incapable officials. It prefers to appoint third parties to do what ANC cadres are already paid to do.
The ANC ignores the monumental failures of its cadre deployment policies – but makes ratepayers pay for it. The ANC has every intention of fielding corrupt and incapable candidates in the 2026 Municipal Elections – hoping paid third party “agencies” will deliver.
The ANC and its governing partners in collapsing municipalities must be voted out of power in the 2026 Municipal Elections. The taxpayer is losing hundreds of billions propping up this hopelessly corrupt and inept criminal network. We must vote for change in 2026.
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Date published: 10/03/2026
Feature images sourced from FreePik
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