Morero under pressure to sort out Joburg's finances or risk losing Treasury funding

JOHANNESBURG - The mayor of Johannesburg, Dada Morero, is again under pressure to sort out the city’s finances or risk losing funding from the National Treasury.

This after Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana recently wrote to the mayor, complaining about the poor management of the municipal coffers.

In a letter, dated July 30th, Godongwana said National Treasury would stop its conditional grant funding if it did not see improvement in the handling of the city’s finances.

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In his letter, Godongwana raised concerns over the city racking up over R22 billion in unauthorised, irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure for the 2023/24 financial year.

Godongwana said that as the mayor, Morero had a responsibility to ensure that the city’s finances were under control.

The mayor’s office has yet to respond to queries from EWN, however, at a media briefing on Sunday, Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi said that he had discussed the matter with Morero.

"The executive mayor is very clear, with the bomb squad he has established and the presidential team that has been assigned to assist us here, all these issues that are identified are issues they have moved on them. They have attended to them, its just that the letter came on the basis that what they are seeing is the last report they have received, but inbetween this period the letter was written and what they have done as a municipality, there has been meaningful progress."

Meanwhile, the Democratic Alliance (DA) in Johannesburg has warned that losing grant funding from National Treasury would collapse the city, with residents suffering the most.