The recent collapses of water services in Grahamstown and the KwaZulu-Natal South Coast are not anomalies. They are harbingers of nationwide collapses.
The auditor-general, conveniently for the government, waited until after the State of the Nation address by President Cyril Ramaphosa to release his annual report. The president should be appropriately grateful.
The bad news from Kimi Makwetu is that more municipalities are near collapse and non-compliance has increased. The AG’s staff is also increasingly being threatened with violence and hampered in its work.
The good news? Well, not much.
For the past years every single AG’s report into the financial state of municipalities has shown an accelerating downward trend. Every year, the AG has bemoaned the lack of decisive leadership at the very top of government and the fact that there are no consequences for corruption and incompetence. Every year, nothing substantial is done, setting
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