Document: Local Government Budgets and Expenditure Review: 2006/07 – 2012/13

The Local Government Budgets and Expenditure Review is a valuable resource that assists analysts, policy makers, elected representatives, citizens, academics and practitioners in assessing the impact of government policies and the resources allocated to implement them. It supports Parliament, provincial legislatures and municipal councils in assessing progress made in implementing government programmes funded through the equitable share and conditional grants allocated to municipalities, as well as municipal own revenue raised from local communities. The Review will also assist political office bearers and all South Africans in evaluating future plans for critical municipal services such as water, sanitation, electricity, refuse removal, municipal transport, roads and community and recreational facilities. In this way, the Review serves as both an accountability and future planning document.

This Review contains both financial and non-financial information relating to key municipal functions. While it is evident that the ability of municipalities and municipal entities to collect financial data has improved, it must be acknowledged that a lot still needs to be done to improve local government non-financial data. Only when this is done will it be possible to evaluate the efficiency of spending with greater accuracy. Steps are already being taken in this regard.

The outcomes approach adopted by the Presidency to measure and monitor government performance and the collaborative effort among key government stakeholders to co-ordinate data collection across all spheres of government should contribute towards improving government’s ability to collect, use and publish non-financial information on local government.

Revenue and expenditure trends in this Review show that local government expenditure continues growing strongly in real terms. Access to service delivery is accordingly improving, particularly in the metropolitan municipalities and other big cities. All this contributes significantly to supporting economic growth, delivering basic municipal services and creating jobs. The Review also identifies a range of challenges that will need to be addressed to ensure faster service delivery in the period ahead. 

The compilation of this Review is a collaborative effort among officials of government.