Municipalities Underspend On Infrastructure In 2024/5: Treasury

National Treasury 's Q2 report for 2024/25 reveals that municipalities underspent on conditional grants and capital projects. These funds were meant for infrastructure development and emergency disaster repairs.

The grants were allocated for programmes to support the development of infrastructure and fund emergency repairs after unforeseen disasters. This also includes funding the implementation of electrification projects, funding the upgrade of informal settlements among others.

The report flags the low capital expenditure, which so far amounts to R14.3 billion of the adopted capital budget of R77.4 billion.

Chief executive officer at Sovereign Africa Ratings, Zwelibanzi Maziya says, "There are issues when it comes to infrastructure development. We have noted inefficiencies which can speak to degradation and having infrastructure that is out of date, especially when it comes to critical infrastructure to the economy, such as rails and ports, and roads, that end up being overused by transportation systems that should have been used in rail in the first place. So, noting underperformance in capital expenditure that is an important factor that has to be attended to and monitored closely."