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Cape Town - Municipalities had spent on average 46.6% or R90.8bn of the R194.7bn total adopted budget for 2009/10 as at December 31 2009 - the end of the first six months of the municipal financial year - the National Treasury said on Friday.
On the revenue side, they had collected on average 49% or R102.9bn of the R210.1bn total adopted revenue budget.
Metropolitan municipalities collected 46.5% of their revenue at the end of the second quarter, or R59.9bn of the adopted revenue budget of R128.9bn.
The City of Johannesburg collected the highest proportion of its revenue at 52.5%, with Ekurhuleni Metro following at 48.4%.
Of the aggregated adopted capital budget amounting to R23.4bn for metropolitan municipalities, R9.7bn or 41.3% had been spent.
The highest percentage spent was by eThekwini at 61% or R3.3bn out of a R5.4bn adopted capital budget, followed by the City of Johannesburg at 58.9% or R2.1bn out of a R3.5bn adopted capital budget, and Cape Town at 35.3% or R2.2bn of a R6.2bn adopted capital budget.
The lowest capital spending was in the Ekurhuleni Metro at 20.7%.
National consumer debt amounted to R56.3bn as at December 31, 2009 (unaudited figures). Metropolitan municipalities were owed a total of R31.3bn.
This was an increase of R1.6bn or 5.3% from the same period in the previous year.
Consumer debt on the up
The biggest increases, compared to the same quarter in the previous year, were in Cape Town at 24.6% or R966m, eThekwini at 22.3% or R877m, and Ekurhuleni Metro at 16.8% or R1.1bn.
Consumer debt owing to secondary cities amounted to R11.5bn and had increased by 12.8% or R1.3bn from the corresponding period last year.
As with the metropolitan municipalities, consumer debtors over 90 days constituted a large proportion, comprising R8.7bn or 76% of the total amount outstanding.
The creditor age analysis showed R8.2bn was owed by municipalities as at December 31 2009, compared to the R7.6bn reported in quarter one of 2009/10.
The Free State had the highest percentage of creditors outstanding for more than 90 days at 23%, followed by Mpumalanga at 15 %, the Eastern Cape at 14.1% and the Northern Cape at 12.6%.
Metros spent on average 2.8% of their total budgets on repairs and maintenance.
"Given the economic slowdown, we anticipated that revenue collection would have begun to come under substantial pressure and consumer debts to show an increasing upward trend by the second quarter," the treasury said.
At present, municipal revenues were holding up fairly well.
This might be attributed to the property rates collected at the beginning of the financial year together with transfers from national government, although there were signs of an upward trend in the consumer debt numbers, it said.
- Sapa
