The briefing, set to take place in Pretoria, is expected to shed more light on whether the state of municipalities has improved and whether they have implemented the AG’s last recommendations. 

His report will come just days after President Cyril Ramaphosa in his State of the Nation Address (SONA) acknowledged the poor state of municipalities and infrastructure in the country. Ramaphosa said more needs to be done to help municipalities and other state organs out of their current financial rut. 

The AG's report also comes at the time when the country awaits new Municipal Cost Containment Measures to take effect. The gazetted regulations set to kick-off from the 1st of July were proposed by the Finance Minister, Tito Mboweni, in consultation with the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) in efforts to cut down on local government's wasteful expenditure. 

According to the new regulations, municipalities in the country will no longer be allowed to spend municipal funds on alcohol, catering for internal meetings only attended by officials, on procurement for luxury vehicles and on the appointment of consultants to perform municipal functions, amongst others. 

In his latest report, Makwetu indicated that most municipalities needed intervention. He outlined that their audit outcomes regressed, the state of good governance was on a decline and lack of accountability had become prevalent in many municipalities.
 
He further indicated that all municipalities in the Free State needed urgent intervention. Municipalities in this province had incurred a total of R675 million in irregular expenditure during the 2016/17 fiscal year alone.  They are more than R7.8 billion indebted to Eskom, which is considered the highest amount as compared to municipalities in other provinces.

The AG’s upcoming financial report is thus expected to shed more light on how municipalities have been doing in terms of their financial controls, payment to their water boards and power supplier as well as whether they have been meeting all other obligations.

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