[A]s of February this year, ANC-led Ekurhuleni had spent only R820m of the R1.9bn allocated by Treasury through the urban settlements development grant.
Trailing second behind Ekurhuleni is the DA coalition-led City of Johannesburg, which spent R618m of the R1.8bn awarded from this grant which is intended to alleviate the pressures of rapid urbanisiation, particularly within the metropolitan municipality.
The capital city of Tshwane, governed through a DA coalition, spent R537m of its R1.5bn from its urban reform grant.
This means the three metros will in the next six weeks – before the end of the 2017/18 financial year – scramble to try to spend the remainder of their much-needed grants.
In response to questions on failures to fully utilise the grants awarded to them, the cities of Johannesburg and Tshwane would not comment, insisting that the hundreds of millions would be spent by June.
In recent weeks DA mayor of Johannesburg Herman Mashaba lamented a lack of funds to provide services, such as the electrification of informal settlements, saying that a huge portion of money had been stolen through corrupt practice by the previous administration under the ANC government.
