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In response to a Democratic Alliance (DA) parliamentary question, the Minister of Communications has revealed that that five of South Africa's six metro municipalities owe the SABC just over R5 million in outstanding debt for advertisements. The only metro not to owe the SABC anything at all is the City of Cape Town. R4.5 million of that debt has been outstanding for more than 120 days, or three months.

It says much about each of these administrations that they are unable to timeously fulfill their financial obligations. Debt is a sign of two things: first, it means a particular administration has not adequately planned or implemented its budget and is unable to properly reconcile its cash flow with its objectives, a sign of poor governance. The state has a special obligation to set an example in this regard and this failing reflects very poorly on those governments in question. Second, it means that interest will no doubt accrue, the burden of which will have to be carried by rate and tax payers, whom those administrations are supposed to be servicing.

This results in a vicious circle of service delivery failure, because the SABC's cash flow will be affected in turn and it too will not be able to properly carry out its duties and functions. In and of itself, this problem might not involve particularly large sums of money, but it is unfortunately symptomatic of a broader trend in which the ANC government is often unable to meet its own internal financial obligations, putting the institutions it is responsible for managing under huge pressure and negatively effecting service delivery.

A full breakdown of the outstanding amounts is as follows:

City of Tshwane: R1 990 448.00 (R1.8 million of which has been outstanding for more than 120 days)
Ethekwini: R1 151 966.00 (R670 000 of which has been outstanding for more than 120 days)
City of Johannesburg: R1 235 084.00 (all of which has been outstanding for more than 120 days)
Nelson Mandela Bay: R151 534.00 (all of which has been outstanding for more than 120 days)
Ekurhuleni: R531 163 (all of which has been outstanding for more than 120 days)

The total amount outstanding is R5 060 195.00. The total amount that has been outstanding for more than 120 days is R4 476 209.00.

The irony, of course, is that the advertisements run by these metros will, no doubt, have been placed to promote service delivery, and yet those self same metros are unable to pay for them on time, which says much about the current state of affairs in local and provincial government.

There should now be consequences for this failure to comply and those responsible should be held to account (the parliamentary reply says the SABC has taken no action to date). Each metro should offer an explanation for its shortcoming. Then, action needs to be taken against those individuals responsible. Each metro has a chief financial officer, responsible for overseeing payment of debt. These people in particular need to explain their failure to comply and, if that explanation is not adequate, action needs to be taken against them. The DA will be submitting further questions to determine what consequences have followed from this situation.